Summary
The purpose of this chapter is to present some additional persuasive evidence obtained recently in our laboratory, that substance P (SP) and neurokinin A (NKA) act as neurotransmitters released from certain primary afferent C-fibers in the spinal cord and some sympathetic ganglia. In the isolated spinal cord preparations of neonatal rats several types of synaptic responses lasting 20–60 s to C-afferent stimulation were depressed by tachykinin NK, receptor antagonists, e.g., GR71251. The C-fiber responses were potentiated by a mixture of peptidase inhibitors, but not after the treatment with GR71251. Likewise, in the coeliac ganglion of the guinea pig, the slow excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) evoked by nerve stimulation was depressed by GR71251 and potentiated by peptidase inhibitors. These results suggest that certain tachykinins, i.e., SP and NKA, and NKA receptors are involved in generation of slow EPSPs in the spinal cord of neonatal rat and prevertebral ganglia of guinea pig. The recent advent of nonpeptide tachykinin antagonists may open a new field in therapeutics of various diseases.
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© 1995 Birkhäuser Verlag Basel/Switzerland
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Otsuka, M. (1995). Neurotransmitter Functions of Mammalian Tachykinins: Substance P and Neurokinin A. 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_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-7218-8_19
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