Summary
With the aid of our novel cloning strategy that combines electrophysiology and a Xenopus oocyte expression system, we have cloned and characterized the NMDA receptors and metabotropic receptors (mGluRs) and have demonstrated that both receptors consist of diverse members of receptor subunits or subtypes. Our studies have indicated that mGluR6 is responsible for synaptic transmission from photoreceptors to ON-bipolar cells and is essential in segregating visual signals into ON- and OFF-pathways. We have also disclosed that in the accessory olfactory bulb, mGluR2 at the presynaptic site of granule cells modulates inhibitory GABA transmission from granule cells to mitral cells and plays an important role in discriminating olfactory stimuli. This modulation by the activation of mGluR2 also induces an olfactory memory formation. On the basis of these findings, the functional importance of second-order neurons (bipolar cells and mitral cells) in sensory information processings is discussed.
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© 1995 Birkhäuser Verlag Basel/Switzerland
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Nakanishi, S. (1995). Molecular Studies of Glutamate Receptors. In: Cuello, A.C., Collier, B. (eds) Pharmacological Sciences: Perspectives for Research and Therapy in the Late 1990s. Birkhäuser Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-7218-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-7218-8_1
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser Basel
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