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, ...

Researchers at Leipzig University and TU Dresden have succeeded in developing biological switches that can selectively turn ion channels on and off using light pulses. Initial applications show that ...

Recent genome projects for ctenophores have revealed the presence of numerous ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs) in Mnemiopsis leidyi and Pleurobrachia bachei, among our earliest metazoan ...

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.

Researchers have identified an ion channel required for brain cells to suppress eating behavior in response to the hormone leptin or to the anti-obesity drug lorcaserin. UT Southwestern Medical Center ...

This is a 3-D computer model of the serotonin 5-HT3 receptor, embedded through a lipid bilayer membrane (horizontal structure with black lines and yellow balls) as it would be naturally in a cell.

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 ...

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 ...