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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1986 May;83(9):3022–3026. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.9.3022

Acetylcholine raises excitability by inhibiting the fast transient potassium current in cultured hippocampal neurons.

Y Nakajima, S Nakajima, R J Leonard, K Yamaguchi
PMCID: PMC323439  PMID: 3010326

Abstract

The effects of acetylcholine on cultured hippocampal neurons were investigated by using the whole-cell version of the patch-clamp technique. The CA1 region of the hippocampus was excised from brain slices of young rats (12-19 day old), incubated in a papain solution, and dissociated. Neurons were plated on a glial feeder layer. The experiments were conducted mostly on neurons cultured for 2-6 days. Upon depolarization under voltage clamp, these cells exhibited a fast transient outward current (A-current), which was inhibited by 4-aminopyridine (2.5 mM). Acetylcholine (0.1 microM) also inhibited this A-current, as did the muscarinic agonists bethanechol and muscarine. As expected from their inhibition of the A-current, acetylcholine and 4-aminopyridine both increased the amplitude of the action potential and prolonged its duration. We conclude that the inhibition of the A-current constitutes a mechanism by which acetylcholine exerts its excitatory influence on hippocampal neurons.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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