The Molecular Machinery of Neurotransmitter Release Nobel Lecture, 7 December 2013
The Molecular Machinery of Neurotransmitter Release Nobel Lecture, 7 December 2013 by Thomas C. Südhof Dept. of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, USA. 1. THE NEUROTRANSMITTER RELEASE ENIGMA Synapses have a long history in science. Synapses were frst functionally demon- strated by Emil duBois-Reymond (1818–1896), were morphologically identifed by classical neuroanatomists such as Rudolf von Kölliker (1817–1905) and San- tiago Ramon y Cajal (1852–1934), and named in 1897 by Michael Foster (1836– 1907). Although the chemical nature of synaptic transmission was already sug- gested by duBois-Reymond, it was long disputed because of its incredible speed. Over time, however, overwhelming evidence established that most synapses use chemical messengers called neurotransmitters, most notably with the pioneer- ing contributions by Otto Loewi (1873–1961), Henry Dale (1875–1968), Ulf von Euler (1905–1983), and Julius Axelrod (1912–2004). In parallel, arguably the most important advance to understanding how synapses work was provided by Bernard Katz (1911–2003), who elucidated the principal mechanism of syn- aptic transmission (Katz, 1969). Most initial studies on synapses were carried out on the neuromuscular junction, and central synapses have only come to the fore in recent decades. Here, major contributions by many scientists, including George Palade, Rodolfo Llinas, Chuck Stevens, Bert Sakmann, Eric Kandel, and Victor Whittaker, to name just a few, not only confrmed the principal results obtained in the neuromuscular junction by Katz, but also revealed that synapses 259 6490_Book.indb 259 11/4/14 2:29 PM 260 The Nobel Prizes exhibit an enormous diversity of properties as well as an unexpected capacity for plasticity.
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