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Degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra is a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, despite decades of research, the cause of PD and the underlying mechanism of action responsible for the progressive degeneration of nigral dopaminergic neurons remain po ...

The incredible in vivo complexity of nervous system and activity oftentimes prevents the neuroscientist from attempting to understand how individual neural cells or a specific phenotype of neural cells contribute to a given function of the nervous system. To elucidate intercellul ...

In this chapter, we describe methodology for in vitro culture of adult neural stem and progenitor cells. The mammalian adult brain, once thought to be completely postmitotic, is now recognized to contain a finite number of neural stem cells, progenitor cells with the capacity for self-renewal a ...

The major advantage of the organotypic culture of striatal slices is that the organotypic culture preserves much of the physiologically relevant environment of striatal neurons. The organotypic culture represents a system more anatomically and physiologically relevant than ...

Microdialysis technique coupled with electrochemical detection (ED) is a relatively new method that allows detection of neurotransmitters and other substances from brain and other tissues. It is based on the insertion of a dialysis probe in a specific area and perfusing it with artifici ...

Acetylcholine (ACh) is a neurotransmitter widely distributed in the central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS). Its role as a neurotransmitter was first elucidated by Dale, who noted that ACh mimicked the effects of parasympathetic nerve stimulation and by Otto Lo ...

Rapid, transient changes in extracellular dopamine concentrations following salient stimuli in freely moving rats have recently been detected using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (1,2). This type of neurotransmission had not been previously observed (for any neurotransmit ...

Biogenic amines such as dopamine (DA), norepinephrine, and serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) are key neurotransmitters found in the central nervous system (CNS). Major DA containing cells, nuclei, and neurons are located in retina, olfactory bulb, hypothalamic-pituitary, nigr ...

Because the neurological effects of drugs of abuse are ultimately reflected in behavioral alteration, rodent behavioral assays are often an important component of drug abuse research. Unfortunately, although there are numerous excellent sources of information for equipping a l ...

A large number of studies (more than 800) have been conducted with the conditioned place preference (CPP) method. The relative popularity of CPP is due to its wide variety of applications. It indeed allows assessment of the rewarding property of drugs or other natural reinforcers and to identify t ...

In order to obtain cDNA clones encoding opioid receptors, one conventional strategy is to screen a cDNA library by using either a nucleic acid probe or an antibody probe. Many opioid receptor cDNA clones have been identified by the cDNA library screening (1–16). Different types of cDNA libraries m ...

Phosphorylation is the most important and common way of regulation of protein functions. It offers rapid and reversible regulation. Protein kinases catalyze phosphorylation of a protein and transfer the γ-phosphate of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) onto the serine, threonine, or tyr ...

Modulation of adenylyl cyclase activity constitutes one of the important intracellular signaling cascades by which many receptors, including opioid receptors, translate extracellular messages into cellular function. Following receptor activation, adenylyl cyclase ...

Three major opioid receptors, δ (DOR-1) (1,2), μ (MOR-1) (3–5), and κ (KOR-1) (6–9), and an opioid-like receptor (ORL-1/KOR-3) (10–16) have been identified by molecular cloning. Although each of the cloned opioid receptors is derived from a single gene, a number of alternatively spliced variants from th ...

Opioid receptors are coupled to a variety of effectors, including G protein-activated inwardly rectifying potassium (GIRK) channels (also known as Kir3), adenylyl cyclases, and voltage-dependent calcium channels (1). GIRK channels have been shown to be involved in opioid-induced a ...

Phosphorylation is a posttranslational modification used to regulate the functions of a variety of proteins, including neurotransmitter receptors. Protein phosphorylation is catalyzed by protein kinases transferring a phosphate molecule from ATP to a protein substrate. T ...

Alternative splicing is commonly used in eucaryotic gene regulation. A single mouse μ opioid receptor gene (Oprm) can generate 15 spliced variants by alternative splicing of its 14 exons (1–6). Furthermore, the region-specific expression of the splice variants suggests an important ro ...

When the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is applied to individual cells, variations in the efficiencies of cell harvest, reverse transcription (RT), and PCR confuse the interpretation of results. This chapter demonstrates three refinements of the standard RT-PCR strategy, which tog ...

In recent years, molecular biology has increasingly focused on how cellular effectors are modulated by the environment and, in turn, modulate each other to control cellular functions. In the opioid field, we concern ourselves both with signaling mechanisms within cells and the functions ...

Three functionally linked units, periaqueductal gray (PAG), rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM), and spinal cord dorsal horn are thought to comprise supraspinal pain suppression system. As it has been suggested, the activation of neurons in PAG excites RVM-spinal cord projecting neu ...