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Updated: May 19, 2026

Novel Whole-tissue Quantitative Assay of Nitric Oxide Levels in Drosophila Neuroinflammatory Response
Published on: December 4, 2013
Nitric oxide has differential effects on currents in different subsets of Manduca sexta antennal lobe neurons
Mark Higgins1, Michael Miller, Alan Nighorn
1Department of Neuroscience, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America.
Abstract:
Nitric oxide has been shown to regulate many biological systems including olfaction. In the moth olfactory system nitric oxide is produced in the antennal lobe in response to odor stimulation and has complex effects on the activity of both projection neurons and local interneurons. To examine the cell autonomous effects of nitric oxide on these cells, we used patch-clamp recording in conjunction with pharmacological manipulation of nitric oxide to test the hypothesis that nitric oxide differentially regulates the channel properties of these different antennal lobe neuron subsets. We found that nitric oxide caused increasing inward currents in a subset of projection neurons while the effects on local neurons were variable but consistent within identifiable morphological subtypes.
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