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Published on: February 24, 2010
Functional and anatomic relationship between cholinergic neurons in the median preoptic nucleus and the supraoptic
Zhice Xu1, John Torday, Jiaming Yao
1Perinatal Research Laboratory, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Research and Education Institute, 1124 W. Carson St., RB-1, Torrance, CA 90502, USA. zxu@gcrc.rei.edu
Abstract:
The median preoptic nucleus (MePO) has been suggested to be an important area in the brain for the regulation of vasopressin (VP) release under the condition of osmotic stimulation. Fos immunoreactivity (Fos-ir), choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) immunoreactivity and retrograde labeling with fluoro-gold were used in this study to determine whether cholinergic neurons in the MePO can be activated by hypertonic NaCl, and to characterize the specific MePO cells that have anatomic projections to the supraoptic nuclei (SON). The results showed that c-fos expression specifically induced by hypertonic NaCl was found in the ChAT cells of the MePO. A retrograde tracing experiment demonstrated that the MePO neurons projecting to the SON were cholinergic. In addition, hypertonic saline-induced Fos-ir was colocalized with the MePO neurons back labeled with fluoro-gold from the SON. Together, these data provide evidence that the MePO cholinergic neurons are activated by osmotic stimulation, and suggest that cholinergic cells in the MePO are functionally important in the control of the SON neurons under the condition of hypertonic stimulation.
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