Functional Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Expression on Stem and Progenitor Cells of the Early Embryonic Nervous System

Abstract

Although the adult brain contains nicotinic acetylcholine (ACh) receptors vital to cortical function, little is known about the assembly of embryonic receptor subunits into functional receptors or their role in fetal brain development. We now report the first evidence of functional nicotinic ACh receptors on stem and progenitor cells of fetal mouse cerebral cortex as early as embryonic day 10.