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Study Unveils Nitric Oxide's Ability To Alter Brain Function
Experts at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit at the University of Leicester say that their new finding has implications for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's Disease.
Professor Ian Forsythe, who led the study at the university, said that the new findings might also help advance scientists' understanding of brain function more generally.
"It is well known that nerve cells communicate via the synapse - the site at which chemical messengers (neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine or glutamate) are packaged and then released under tight control to influence their neighbours," Professor Forsythe, of the MRC Toxicology Unit, said in a research paper published in the journal Neuron.
"Nitric oxide is a chemical messenger which cannot be stored and can rapidly diffuse across cell membranes to act at remote sites (in contrast to conventional neurotransmitters which cannot pass across cell membranes).
"It is broadly localized in the central nervous system, where it influences synaptic transmission and contributes to learning and memory mechanisms. However, because it is normally released in such minute quantities and is so labile, it is very difficult to study.
"We have exploited an in vitro preparation of a giant synapse -called the calyx of Held, developed here at the University of Leicester in the 1990s- and its target in the auditory pathway to explore nitric oxide signalling in the brain.
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