MCDB 423 Lecture Notes - Lecture 37: Cholinergic, Optogenetics, Transferase

• School: U of M
• Department: Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
• Course: MCDB 423
• Professor: John Kuwada

Document Summary

Used optogenetic to control the behavior of an organism. Cholinergic neurons that we studied the most are the motor neurons. They make and release ach at the nmj. There are also cholinergic neurons in the brain. There are cholinergic neurons in the basal and the brainstem. One of the features is that they innervate in a lot of different places including the hippocampus and the amgidala. Cholinergic neurons are thought to be be important for reward behaviors including drug addiction. The nac is the region of the brain (deep within the brain) is the region that contains some cholinergic neurons. Thought that these cholinergic neurons in the nac might regulate reward. So if you wanted to ablate them, it would be difficult slide 4. He figured out a strategy to manipulate the cholinergic neurons in the nac. Started with a transgenetic mouse where the chat promotoer regulatory sequences controlled cre.