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Ligand‐gated ion channels: from genes to behaviour
Author(s) -
Bowie Derek
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the journal of physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.802
H-Index - 240
eISSN - 1469-7793
pISSN - 0022-3751
DOI - 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.224592
Subject(s) - ion channel , neuroscience , ligand (biochemistry) , ligand gated ion channel , cognitive science , chemistry , psychology , receptor , biochemistry
The study of ligand-gated ion-channels was born out of a marriage of convenience between early pharmacologists intent on developing a drug-receptor theory (Colquhoun, 2006) and pioneering neurophysiologists wishing to map out the many neurotransmitter pathways of the nervous system (Krnjevic, 1974, 2010). Investigators gravitated towards the cholinergic synapse of the neuromuscular junction in the late 1950s (Colquhoun & Sakmann, 1998) and produced our first serious treatise of agonist behaviour (Del Castillo & Katz, 1957), analysis at the single-channel level (Neher & Sakmann, 1976; Colquhoun & Sakmann, 1985) and ultimately the cloning of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) (Sakmann et al. 1985). The Journal of Physiology played an integral role in many of these advances and has continued this tradition as the study of ligand-gated ion channels has broadened ever further over the decades to include investigators from many other disciplines.