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. 1997 Feb;72(2 Pt 1):507–521. doi: 10.1016/s0006-3495(97)78691-0

A Mechanism for Discharge of Charged Excitatory Neurotransmitter

Raya Khanin *, Hanna Parnas #, Lee Segel *
PMCID: PMC1185580  PMID: 9017182

Abstract

Excitatory neurotransmitter is charged, so that emptying of a transmitter-containing vesicle (discharge) would seem to require considerable energy. Even if the energy problem is surmounted and discharge thereby made possible, there is still a problem of making the discharge fast enough (considerably less than 1 ms). Proposed here is a mechanism wherein discharge of charged transmitter is accompanied by the influx of cocharged ions or coefflux of counter-charged particles (ion interchange). It is shown theoretically that ion interchange obviates the necessity for a separate energy source and can provide the observed rapid vesicle discharge.

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Selected References

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