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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jul 2.
Published in final edited form as: J Neurosci Res. 2017 Jan 2;95(1-2):422–436. doi: 10.1002/jnr.23878

Figure 2. Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) activity is modulated by different sex hormones throughout development.

Figure 2

Progesterone allosterically inhibits α4 nAChR subunits via a site outside the membrane pore (Valera et al., 1992), whereas estradiol potentiates the activity of human α4-containing nAChRs by increasing the opening probability (Curtis et al., 2002). The abundance of these steroids changes throughout development and across sexes. How this complex relationship between sex, nAChRs and development affects brain maturation and function is still being elucidated.