Photonic dissection of how neurotransmission works

Biochemists over the years have informed us about virtually every molecule involved in the process of neurotransmission. This is the process by which nerve cells (neurons) convert an electrical signal to a chemical one, in structures called synapses. Understanding this is the key to elucidating how the nervous system works; when this process becomes mis-regulated, it leads to neurological disorders such as epilepsy, depression or schizophrenia, to name but a few.

The problem with biochemistry is that it does not provide information about the spatial and temporal organisation of a process where it happens - ie inside living cells - so whilst being invaluable for defining lists of molecules and pair-wise steps in pathways leading to a cellular effect, it cannot really tell us what happens inside cells, at the molecular level, where and when it occurs. Determining this is difficult, because the molecules are very small (nano-scale) and the events we need to understand occur very quickly.

Here I will discuss recent published work from my lab where we used fluorescence spectroscopy approaches with single molecule resolution and very high temporal rates, to dissect which molecules interact with others, inside intact functional synapses in living neurons, in the short time periods leading up to, during, and beyond neurotransmission. Our recent unpublished data is now beginning to reconcile the molecular events with the structures in the cells and with observations in a variety of cell types that showed that certain molecules can enhance, or ‘prime’ neurotransmission.

You can find a blog post about some of this work here; http://neurosciencenews.com/nanoscopy-neurotransmission-synapses-1691