| Abstract No.: | A-B1058 |
| Country: | USA |
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| Title: | DISTINGUISHING DOPAMINERGIC NEURONS FROM GABAERGIC NEURONS IN THE VENTRAL TEGMENTAL AREA |
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| Authors/Affiliations: | 1 Bruce McKay*; 1 Tao Zhang; 1 Andon Placzek; 1 John Dani;
1 Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
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| Content: | A major goal in neuroscience is to correlate changes in behaviour with changes in the physiology of specific types of neurons. For instance, it has been hypothesized that long-term changes at synapses and neurons within the midbrain’s ventral tegmental area (VTA) contribute to the lasting behavioural changes associated with drug addiction. The VTA primarily consists of two neuronal types – principal cells that synthesize the neurotransmitter dopamine, and inhibitory interneurons that synthesize GABA. Understanding the roles of each of these neuronal types will be central to understanding the neurobiology of drug addiction, and thus unambiguous criteria to distinguish dopaminergic from GABAergic neurons are required. Ideally, electrophysiological markers can be identified, as these would enable the identity of the neurons to be known in real-time during electrophysiological recordings, without the need for molecular identification strategies following recording. To this end we are completing a rigorous electrophysiological characterization of neurons within the VTA using whole cell voltage and current clamp recordings and cell-attached recordings. The molecular identity of the recorded neurons is then determined post hoc, either via immunohistochemistry of the Neurobiotin-filled neurons, or via single cell reverse transcriptase multiplex polymerase chain reaction (single cell RT-PCR). Transgenic mice, in which the promoter for tyrosine hydroxylase drives the production of green fluorescent protein (GFP), further enables the molecular distinction of dopaminergic from GABAergic neurons during the electrophysiological experiments. It is our aim to identify a quantitative combination of electrophysiological characteristics (e.g., specific features of the action potential waveform, spike output frequency, characteristics of ionic currents, etc) that will reliably distinguish dopaminergic from GABAergic neurons, abrogating future need for post hoc molecular identification. |
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