MARCS Research Seminar

Dr Erika Gyengesi, from the School of Medicine at UWS will be presenting "The basal forebrain cholinergic projection system - structure and function."

Abstract: The basal forebrain is composed of an affiliation of heterogeneous structures and includes the medial septum, ventral pallidum, diagonal band nuclei and the substantia innominata/extended amygdala. One of the most prominent features of the mammalian basal forebrain is the presence of a collection of aggregated and non-aggregated, large, hyperchromic neurons, many of them containing choline acetyl transferase, the critical enzyme in the synthesis of acetylcholine; and project to the cerebral cortex. These corticopetal neurons are often referred to in the clinical literature as nucleus basalis, first illustrated by Theodor Meynert in 1872. In this presentation, I will discuss the precise anatomical distribution of cholinergic and non-cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain areas. Then the input-output relations of cholinergic and other local neuron in relation to its functional properties, based on my electrophysiological and anatomical tracing experiments and present new findings from others.