Chemical Communication in the CNS: Neurotransmitters and Their Function

Abstract

Publisher Summary In considering current work on neurotransmitters at least four major categories of information merit author's attention. First, there is the process of transmitter discovery, and the likelihood that future application of molecular genetics methods may accelerate and broaden the search for those neurotransmitters which await discovery. Second, there are the cellular strategies by which already discovered transmitters are localized and their mechanisms of cell–cell communication are expressed. From these sorts of studies the spatial and functional domains over which specific transmitters operate can be characterized and contrasted. Third, the parallel molecular level studies which for some transmitters permit biochemical assessment of functions other than direct electrophysiological regulation of target cells and which may represent other facets of a set of holistic actions. Finally, a fourth body of work attempts to relate cellular and molecular actions of transmitters to regulation of behaviors. This chapter briefly comments on the metabolic properties of the presumed cortical transmitter vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP), and on the mechanisms possibly underlying the behavioral effects of arginine-vasopressin (AVP) a hypothalamic peptide presumed to operate as a neurotransmitter as well as in a more classical endocrine hormone role.