Acetylcholine release from the central nervous system: a 50-year retrospective.

Some 50 years have elapsed since Elliot et al. and MacIntosh & Oborin first reported a release of acetylcholine (ACh) from canine and feline cerebral cortices, respectively. In this review, subsequent developments in the field during the succeeding five decades are explored.

Cyclooxygenases, lipoxygenases, and epoxygenases in CNS: their role and involvement in neurological disorders.

Three enzyme systems, cyclooxygenases that generate prostaglandins, lipoxygenases that form hydroxy derivatives and leukotrienes, and epoxygenases that give rise to epoxyeicosatrienoic products, metabolize arachidonic acid after its release from neural membrane phospholipids by the action of phospholipase A(2). Lysophospholipids, the other products of phospholipase A(2) reactions, are either reacylated or metabolized to platelet-activating factor. Under normal conditions, these metabolites play important roles in synaptic function, cerebral blood flow regulation, apoptosis, angiogenesis, and gene expression.

Adenosine and adenine nucleotides as regulators of cerebral blood flow: roles of acidosis, cell swelling, and KATP channels.

A considerable volume of evidence implicates the purine adenosine in the regulation of cerebral blood flow during states such as hypotension, neural activation, hypoxia/ischemia, and hypercapnia/acidosis. The aim of this review is to describe developments in our understanding of the roles that adenosine and the adenine nucleotides play in cerebral blood flow control, with some comparisons to coronary blood flow. The first part of the review focuses on the categorization of receptors for adenosine (A1, A2A, A2B, and A3) and the adenine nucleotides, ATP and ADP (P2X and P2Y).