Major Discovery About Mammalian Brains Surprises Researchers - Neuroscience News

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Summary: V-ATPase, a vital enzyme that enables neurotransmission is able to switch on and off randomly, even taking hours-long breaks.

Source: University of Copenhagen.

In a new breakthrough to understand more about the mammalian brain, University of Copenhagen researchers have made an incredible discovery.

Namely, a vital enzyme that enables brain signals is switching on and off at random, even taking hours-long “breaks from work”.

Still, the brains of humans and other mammals are miraculously able to function,” says Professor Dimitrios Stamou, who led the study from the center for Geometrically Engineered Cellular Systems at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Chemistry.

The central enzyme of this study, known as V-ATPase, is responsible for supplying the energy for the neurotransmitter pumps in these containers.

Without it, neurotransmitters wouldn’t be pumped into the containers, and the containers wouldn’t be able to transmit messages between neurons.

But the study demonstrates that in each container, there is just one enzyme; when this enzyme switches off, there would be no more energy to drive the loading of neurotransmitters into the containers.

“It is nearly incomprehensible that the extremely critical process of loading neurotransmitters in containers is delegated to only one molecule per container?

Source: University of Copenhagen.

Contact: Press Office – University of Copenhagen.

In neurons, the loading of all neurotransmitters into synaptic vesicles is energized by about one V-ATPase molecule per synaptic vesicle

A direct consequence of mode-switching is all-or-none stochastic fluctuations in the electrochemical gradient of synaptic vesicles that would be expected to introduce stochasticity in proton-driven secondary active loading of neurotransmitters and may thus have important implications for neurotransmission