khofmann at biomed.biolan.uni-koeln.de writes:
> Can anybody tell me, what kind of neurotransmitters are used in the worm
>Caenorhabditis elegans? This species has to my knowledge (but I am no
>neuroscientist) a small but fairly developed nervous system. But I was not
>able to track down any information on the neurotransmitters used in
>C.elegans synapses.
A good starting reference would be M. Chalfie and J. White's
chapter in _The Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans_, W.B. Wood (ed.),
1988, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
It's thought that excitatory body-wall muscle motor neurons
use acetylcholine. Inhibitory motor neurons use GABA.
Excitatory motor neurons in the egg-laying circuitry seem
to be using serotonin.
Dopamine and octopamine have been detected in the worm as
well.
- Sean Eddy
- MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
- sre at mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
