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Electrophysiological Effect of β‐N‐Methylamino‐L‐Alanine on Retzius Nerve Cells of the Leech Haemopis sanguisuga
Author(s) -
NEDELJKOV VLADIMIR,
LOPIČIĆ SRDJAN,
PAVLOVIĆ DRAGAN,
ČEMERIKIĆ DUŠAN
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1342.034
Subject(s) - bicarbonate , leech , excitatory postsynaptic potential , membrane potential , membrane , electrophysiology , chemistry , biophysics , alanine , conductance , permeability (electromagnetism) , nerve cells , biology , biochemistry , neuroscience , microbiology and biotechnology , amino acid , receptor , physics , organic chemistry , condensed matter physics , world wide web , computer science
A bstract : We investigated the effect of β‐N‐methylamino‐L‐alanine (L‐BMAA) on input membrane resistance of leech Retzius nerve cells and the effect of the same substance on the membrane potential in the presence of 20 mM bicarbonate. Results of our experiments show that L‐BMAA significantly reduces input membrane resistance on our model. This leads to the conclusion that L‐BMAA depolarizes the cell by increasing membrane permeability and conductance. The effect of L‐BMAA in 20 mM bicarbonate is significantly higher than in standard Ringer solution. These results indicate that bicarbonate increases the excitatory effect of L‐BMAA in our model.