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Ricardo Miledi and the calcium hypothesis of neurotransmitter release

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 3, pages 71–76 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Ricardo Miledi has made significant contributions to our basic understanding of how synapses work. Here I discuss aspects of Miledi's research that helped to establish the requirement of presynaptic calcium for neurotransmitter release, from his earliest scientific studies to his classic experiments in the squid giant synapse.

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Figure 1: Woods Hole, 1955.
Figure 2: Stazione Zoologica, Napoli, 1973.

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Ricardo Miledi, Ian Parker and Jacques Stinnakre for their contributions, and dedicates this work to Pinnok Chu Jeng. J.-M.J. was awarded the Ralph Waldo Gerard Prize for Excellence in the History of Neuroscience for an earlier version of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Medical Scientist Training Program and the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine, 92697-4292, USA

    Jade-Ming Jeng

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  1. Jade-Ming Jeng
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FURTHER INFORMATION

calcium and neurotransmitter release

calcium channels

chemical synapses

synaptic vesicle traffic

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Jeng, JM. Ricardo Miledi and the calcium hypothesis of neurotransmitter release. Nat Rev Neurosci 3, 71–76 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn706

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