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Updated: Feb 12, 2026

Probing Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Function in Mouse Brain Slices via Laser Flash Photolysis of Photoactivatable Nicotine
Published on: January 25, 2019
Photoactivatable drugs for nicotinic optopharmacology
Sambashiva Banala1, Matthew C Arvin2, Nicholas M Bannon3
1Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, Virginia, USA.
Abstract:
Photoactivatable pharmacological agents have revolutionized neuroscience, but the palette of available compounds is limited. We describe a general method for caging tertiary amines by using a stable quaternary ammonium linkage that elicits a red shift in the activation wavelength. We prepared a photoactivatable nicotine (PA-Nic), uncageable via one- or two-photon excitation, that is useful to study nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in different experimental preparations and spatiotemporal scales.
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