Li R, Nishijo H, Wang Q, Uwano T, Tamura R, Ohtani O, Ono T
Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Sugitani 2630, Toyama 930-0194, Japan.
J Comp Neurol. 2001 Oct 29;439(4):411-25. doi: 10.1002/cne.1359.
Pharmacological studies have suggested that the cholinergic (ACh) and noradrenergic (NA) systems in the amygdala (AM) play an important role in learning and memory storage and that the two systems interact to modulate memory storage. To obtain anatomical evidence for the interaction, the organization of the ACh and NA fibers in rat AM was investigated by immunocytochemistry for choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and dopamine-beta-hydroxylase (DBH) in conjunction with light, confocal laser scanning, and electron microscopy (LM, CLSM, and TEM, respectively). LM showed that the ChAT immunoreactivity was densest in the basolateral nucleus (BL), whereas the DBH immunoreactivity was densest in the posterior BL. CLSM demonstrated that the ChAT-immunoreactive profiles in the BL were frequently located in juxtaposition to the DBH-immunoreactive axons. The TEM observations were as follows: The majority of the synapses formed by ChAT-immunoreactive terminals were symmetric, but DBH-immunoreactive axons formed both asymmetric and symmetric synapses. The ChAT-immunoreactive terminals usually established the symmetric synaptic contacts with the DBH-immunoreactive terminals and varicosities. The DBH-immunoreactive terminals formed the asymmetric synapses with the ChAT-immunoreactive dendrites of the intrinsic neurons within the AM. The results provide anatomical substrates for mnemonic functions of the ACh and NA systems and for the interactions between the two systems in the AM.
药理学研究表明，杏仁核（AM）中的胆碱能（ACh）和去甲肾上腺素能（NA）系统在学习和记忆存储中起重要作用，且这两个系统相互作用以调节记忆存储。为了获得这种相互作用的解剖学证据，通过免疫细胞化学方法，分别结合光学显微镜、共聚焦激光扫描显微镜和电子显微镜（分别为LM、CLSM和TEM），对大鼠杏仁核中ACh和NA纤维的组织结构进行了研究，所用抗体分别针对胆碱乙酰转移酶（ChAT）和多巴胺-β-羟化酶（DBH）。光学显微镜显示，ChAT免疫反应性在基底外侧核（BL）中最为密集，而DBH免疫反应性在BL后部最为密集。共聚焦激光扫描显微镜表明，BL中的ChAT免疫反应性轮廓经常与DBH免疫反应性轴突并列分布。电子显微镜观察结果如下：由ChAT免疫反应性终末形成的大多数突触是对称的，但DBH免疫反应性轴突形成了不对称和对称突触。ChAT免疫反应性终末通常与DBH免疫反应性终末和膨体建立对称的突触联系。DBH免疫反应性终末与杏仁核内固有神经元的ChAT免疫反应性树突形成不对称突触。这些结果为ACh和NA系统的记忆功能以及杏仁核中这两个系统之间的相互作用提供了解剖学基础。
