Table 1.

Amino acid receptor channels in the PVN.

Ion channel family	General role	Subtype identified	Method	Relevance	Reference
GABAA	Inhibition of neuronal activity/iPSP	Type A (subtype not specified)	Implicit from in vivo study.	Keeps spinally projecting neurones tonically inhibited	Martin et al., 1991; Martin and Haywood, 1993
			Patch-clamp electrophysiology		Li et al., 2002, 2004b; Zaki and Barrett-Jolley, 2002; Womack et al., 2006
		GABAA α2-subunit	Immunohistochemistry	Also seen specifically in spinally projecting neurones	Fritschy and Mohler, 1995; Nunn et al., 2011
		α5-subunit	Immunohistochemistry	Decreased in hypertension	Cullinan, 2000
		α2, β1, and β3 subunits	qPCR	Especially in CRH positive neurones	Wang et al., 2009
GABAB	Inhibition of neuronal activity	–	Patch-clamp electrophysiology (post synaptic potentials).	Further inhibition of spinally-projecting neurones	Chen and Pan, 2006; Wang et al., 2009
Glutamate	Excitation/ePSPs	NMDA, AMPA	Patch-clamp	Activation of spinally-projecting neurones	Cui et al., 2001
	Excitation/ePSPs	GluR5; Kainate (KAR)	In situ hybridization and immunohistochemical plus a cFos study/pharmacology		Evanson et al., 2009