The contribution of the cholinergic receptors to synaptic transmission and plasticity in the visual system
These studies were focused on the visual cortex as a paradigm to investigate synaptic plasticity of neocortical circuits. Using visual cortex slices, we showed that acetylcholine is able to change the functional dynamics of neocortical circuitry through activation of different signal transduction pathways coupled to different subtypes of muscarinic receptors (Origlia et al., J Physiol, 2006).
In addition we demonstrated that other cholinergic receptors, such as the homomeric α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (AchR), contribute to the normal development of cortical visual function (Origlia et al., IOVS, 2012). As the main forms of synaptic plasticity (long-term potentiation and long-term depression) are impaired in the visual cortex of α7 AchR knock-out mice, the visual deficit is due to an abnormal development of cortical circuitry, functionally driven by plastic phenomena (Criscuolo et al., Neuroscience, 2015). More recently in collaboration with Dr. Cecilia Gotti, we used the novel [RDP-MII(E11R)] toxin that is an antagonists for α6β2* receptors to investigate the impact of α6* nAChRs on visual function (Barloscio et al., FASEB J, 2017)