This explainer outlines how neurons and glial cells coordinate electrical and chemical signals to form complex brain networks that govern thought, behavior, and consciousness. It also explores how ...

Neurotransmitters initiate their action when they bind to a receptor on their target cell. A receptor is a small protein that can attach to a specific chemical or hormone in the body. Receptors ...

Ines Ibañez-Tallon is revealing how an understudied region of the brain plays an outsized role in opioid and nicotine ...

Upon energy restriction, an unusual release of the neurotransmitter glutamate can be observed. The overabundance of glutamate ...

Receptors can also respond directly to light ... Some of these chemical signals — including neurotransmitters — travel only a short distance, but others must go much farther to reach their ...

If the neurotransmitter binds to an ion channel receptor on the target cell, the related ion channel opens, and an electrical signal propagates itself along the length of the target cell.

Additional studies in collaboration with Ibañez-Tallon showed that lynx-1 altered the function of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that helps to activate muscles ...

False-colour positron emission tomography (PET) scan highlighting limbic areas in a human brain. A receptor for the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA is visualised here in regions of the brain ...