It will require computational models that will help us to understand how behavior at one level emerges from the properties of a lower level. But most critically, it will require a return to appreciating

the benefits of working on disparate animal species. Each animal has devised extraordinary and baroque circuit mechanisms that employ neuromodulation to achieve important behavioral flexibility in the context of its environment, neuronal complement, and biomechanical constraints. Baf-A1 molecular weight Many of the circuit configurations that we will uncover may be weird and specific solutions to particular needs of that species. It will only be by looking for general principles across species that we will find the more general rules that govern the robust and stable neuromodulation needed for functional circuit activity in all animals. It is impossible to do justice to even a small fraction of the papers and investigators who have contributed to the changes in conceptual framework that we have seen since these beginning days of the study of circuits and their neuromodulation. I apologize to all those whose work has given us so much and yet goes unmentioned here. I thank Dr. Marie Goeritz Selleckchem MK2206 for help with the figures. This review benefitted by support from NS17813 from the National Institutes of Health. “
“Synaptic transmission is viewed as depending

primarily on the actions of glutamate and y-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and the majority of CNS interneuronal interactions monitored electrophysiologically Mephenoxalone are driven by these two neurotransmitters. A few other neurotransmitters, such as acetylcholine, serotonin, or ATP also elicit electrophysiological responses. Together, these responses constitute the trunk of synaptic transmission. The role of the branches is carried out by neuromodulators. Neuromodulators can be classified as transmitters that, like glutamate

and GABA, are released from a neuron and interact with specific receptors found on the membrane of a recipient neuron (Figure 1). Contrary to glutamate or GABA, they do not interact with ligand-gated ion channels but with G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Activation of these GPCRs induces second messenger response(s) that changes the biochemical properties of the recipient cell and consequently can modulate its electrophysiological responsiveness but also its transcriptional activity or its metabolism. Note that glutamate, GABA and the neurotransmitters mentioned above activate their own GPCRs, they therefore can also act as neuromodulators. Because only a limited number of second messenger pathways exist, it is the neuromodulator-receptor interaction that needs to provide the complexity required for brain function. However, because this interaction is based on a binary mechanism, complexity must rely on the diversity of the neuromodulators and their receptors.