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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Mol Pharmacol. 2008 Jun 3;74(3):764–776. doi: 10.1124/mol.108.047134

Figure 2. Physostigmine directly activates the mouse adult wild type nAChR.

Figure 2

Single-channel currents and the respective open time histograms from patches exposed to 1 μM (A), 10 μM (B), or 100 μM physostigmine (C). The activity consisted of single, isolated openings without the characteristic clustering behavior observed with ACh or many other nicotinic agonists. The open time histograms were fitted to sums of two exponentials (1 and 10 μM physostigmine) or a single exponential (100 μM physostigmine). In the presence of 1 μM physostigmine, the open times for the data in this histogram were 0.22 ms (65%) and 0.74 ms. In the presence of 10 μM physostigmine, the open times were 0.12 ms (51%) and 0.49 ms. In the presence of 100 μM physostigmine, the mean open duration was 0.13 ms. Due to lack of clusters and the uncertainty in the number of active receptors in the patch, the closed times were not analyzed. The data are consistent with physostigmine being a low-potency or a low efficacy agonist on the wild type receptor.