Cifuentes Castro Victor Hugo, López Valenzuela Carmen Lucía, Salazar Sánchez Juan Carlos, Peña Kenia Pardo, López Pérez Silvia J, Ibarra Jorge Ortega, Villagrán Alberto Morales
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Camino Ramón Padilla Sánchez 2100, Nextipac, Zapopan, Jalisco, México, Zip code: 45110, Mexico.
Curr Neuropharmacol. 2014 Dec;12(6):490-508. doi: 10.2174/1570159X13666141223223657.
To understand better the cerebral functions, several methods have been developed to study the brain activity, they could be related with morphological, electrophysiological, molecular and neurochemical techniques. Monitoring neurotransmitter concentration is a key role to know better how the brain works during normal or pathological conditions, as well as for studying the changes in neurotransmitter concentration with the use of several drugs that could affect or reestablish the normal brain activity. Immediate response of the brain to environmental conditions is related with the release of the fast acting neurotransmission by glutamate (Glu), γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and acetylcholine (ACh) through the opening of ligand-operated ion channels. Neurotransmitter release is mainly determined by the classical microdialysis technique, this is generally coupled to high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Detection of neurotransmitters can be done by fluorescence, optical density, electrochemistry or other detection systems more sophisticated. Although the microdialysis method is the golden technique to monitor the brain neurotransmitters, it has a poor temporal resolution. Recently, with the use of biosensor the drawback of temporal resolution has been improved considerably, however other inconveniences have merged, such as stability, reproducibility and the lack of reliable biosensors mainly for GABA. The aim of this review is to show the important advances in the different ways to measure neurotransmitter concentrations; both with the use of classic techniques as well as with the novel methods and alternant approaches to improve the temporal resolution.
为了更好地理解大脑功能，已经开发了几种方法来研究大脑活动，这些方法可能与形态学、电生理学、分子学和神经化学技术有关。监测神经递质浓度对于更好地了解大脑在正常或病理状态下的工作方式，以及研究使用几种可能影响或重建正常大脑活动的药物时神经递质浓度的变化起着关键作用。大脑对环境条件的即时反应与谷氨酸（Glu）、γ-氨基丁酸（GABA）和乙酰胆碱（ACh）通过配体门控离子通道的开放释放快速起效的神经传递有关。神经递质的释放主要由经典的微透析技术测定，该技术通常与高效液相色谱（HPLC）联用。神经递质的检测可以通过荧光、光密度、电化学或其他更复杂的检测系统进行。尽管微透析方法是监测大脑神经递质的黄金技术，但其时间分辨率较差。最近，随着生物传感器的使用，时间分辨率的缺点得到了显著改善，然而其他不便之处也出现了，如稳定性、重现性以及主要针对GABA缺乏可靠的生物传感器。本综述的目的是展示在测量神经递质浓度的不同方法中的重要进展；包括使用经典技术以及新颖方法和替代方法来提高时间分辨率。
