The ability to accurately detect heat and pain is critical to human survival, but scientists have struggled to understand on a molecular level exactly how our bodies sense these potential risks. Now, ...

The process of expressing a wide variety of voltage-gated and ligand-gated ion channels enables nociceptors to transduce receptor potential into single action potentials or multiple action potentials.

Ion channels make good drug targets—they reside on the cell surface and are fast switching mechanisms. They act like cell transistors, controlling many cell processes. There are close to 500 types of ...

Neurotoxins from cone snails and spiders help neurobiologists to investigate the function of ion channels in neurons. They have developed a system which for the first time allows the targeted, ...

An international team involving the Institute of Chemical Research, a joint center of the University of Seville and the ...

Some neurological disorders, like chronic pain, depression, and epilepsy, are caused in part by an imbalance in neurochemical signals that either excite or calm down neurons. Existing treatments try ...

The lower body domain is composed of residues 56–74, 93–104, 188–207, 254–281 and 320–330 (zfP2X4 numbering) and is characterized by a β-sandwich motif formed by six β-sheets (Figure 2A and 2H).

Glutamate receptor ion channels use the free energy of ligand binding to trigger ion channel activation and desensitization. In this issue, an analysis of all-atom molecular dynamics simulations ...

Scientists have elucidated for the first time how a notoriously elusive serotonin receptor functions with atom-level detail. The receptor transmits electrical signals in neurons and is involved in ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The ability to accurately detect heat and pain is critical to human survival, but scientists have struggled to understand on a molecular level exactly how our bodies sense these ...