Research on muscarinic receptors is advancing at an extraordinary rate. Ten years ago, the existence of muscarinic receptor sub types was a logical assumption with only scattered experimen tal support. The discovery that pirenzepine recognized apparent heterogeneity in muscarinic binding sites infused new life into the problem of subclassifying muscarinic receptors. Simultaneous advances in molecular biology created a frenzy to clone cell sur face receptors. The muscarinic receptor succumbed surprisingly quickly, revealing its structure and that of at least four closely related gene products...

This volume contains the proceedings of the Third International Conference on Insect Neurochemistry and Neurophysiology (ICINN'89), which was held at the University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland, on July 10-12, 1989. The ICINN meetings were ini tiated in 1983 at a time when insect neurobiology was emerging as a vigorous sector of entomology, requiring a degree of attention and autonomy long before granted to its sister field, vertebrate neurobiol ogy. The distinctly medical aspects of the latter were replaced by potentiali ties for developing new approaches to insect control, and the...

A probable neurobiological role for the trace amines began to emerge as soon as techniques sufficiently sophisticated to detect them were developed. Techniques for quantitative analyses included radioenzymatic procedures and, more recently, HPlC-EC and auto mated GC-MS. The methods are applied after separation of the sub stances to be analyzed and after their purification by physicochemical procedures that are becoming more and more efficient. The identification and quantitative analysis of minute amounts of trace amines in biological fluids or tissues is in itself a remarkable technological...

Many of the trace amines-more correctly called biogenic amines have been known for decades, but because of their tiny concentra tions (0. 01-100 ng/g) in brain, it was only after the development of sophisticated analytical techniques (such as mass spectrometry) that they could be identified and quantitated in nervous tissue. There are now more than 20 of them and most are related to the catecholamines and 5-hydroxytryptamine both structurally and metabolically. Their pharmacological and physiological properties make them prime candidates for a transmitter or neuromodulator role and many of...

The third Symposium of the Foundation for Life Sciences was held in February 1983 at the Newport Inn Conference Centre in Sydney. It was direced towards an understanding of the molecular neuropathology of muscle and nerve under a wide variety of conditions that may be induced by external agents or genetic lesions. The first session on experimental neurology explored the processes involved in maintenance of nerve and muscle function. This included many papers on myelination, studies on immune reactions affecting nerves, on synapses, and on neuronal development. This section was expanded to...

One of the most active and productive areas of biological science in the past decade has been the study of the biochemical and biophysical prop- erties of cell membranes. There is little doubt that membranes are essen- tial components of all cellular systems and that each type of membrane manifests specific and characteristic cellular functions. In the nervous system, important events such as neurotransmission, receptor binding, ion transport, axonal transport, and cell uptake are all known to take place within the neural cell membrane. Phospholipids, one of the major components of membranes,...

One of the most active and productive areas of biological science in the past decade has been the study of the biochemical and biophysical prop erties of cell membranes. There is little doubt that membranes are essen tial components of all cellular systems and that each type of membrane manifests specific and characteristic cellular functions. In the nervous system, important events such as neurotransmission, receptor binding, ion transport, axonal transport, and cell uptake are all known to take place within the neural cell membrane. Phospholipids, one of the major components of membranes,...

This volume contains the proceedings of the Third International Conference on Insect Neurochemistry and Neurophysiology (ICINN'89), which was held at the University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland, on July 10-12, 1989. The ICINN meetings were ini tiated in 1983 at a time when insect neurobiology was emerging as a vigorous sector of entomology, requiring a degree of attention and autonomy long before granted to its sister field, vertebrate neurobiol ogy. The distinctly medical aspects of the latter were replaced by potentiali ties for developing new approaches to insect control, and the...

This is the third Proceedings book to arise from biennial conferen ces on the Trace Amines. Since our first meeting in 1983 in Edmonton, Canada, progress has been brisk and, as will be seen from the ensuing pages, it is now possible to include major contributions from inverte brate neurobiologists as well as receptorologists. In the opening ses sion we heard about the distribution of the trace amines-now clear ly a misnomer-in insects and the pharmacological, receptor, and syn aptic characteristics of octopamine and tryptamine as well as the pos sibility of monoamines in general being targets...

The nature and diversity of presentations at the second International Conference on Insect Neurochemistry and Neurophysiology (ICINN--86) held at the University of Maryland on August 4-6. 1986, attest to the vital- ity and broad scope of research in insect neuroscience. The present vol- ume is a written account of the invited lectures, contributed papers, and posters presented at the conference, and as such, serves as a fair indica- tor of the trends in current research in this field here and abroad. The principal portion of this book consists of seven review papers that were presented by...