Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, or nAChRs, are receptor polypeptides that respond to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Nicotinic receptors also respond to drugs such as the agonist nicotine. They are found in the central and peripheral nervous system, muscle, and many other tissues of many organisms. At the neuromuscular junction they are the primary receptor in muscle for motor nerve-muscle communication that controls muscle contraction. In the peripheral nervous system: (1) they transmit outgoing signals from the presynaptic to the postsynaptic cells within the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, and (2) they are the receptors found on skeletal muscle that receive acetylcholine released to signal for muscular contraction. In the immune system, nAChRs regulate inflammatory processes and signal through distinct intracellular pathways.^[1] In insects, the cholinergic system is limited to the central nervous system.^[2]

The nicotinic receptors are considered cholinergic receptors, since they respond to acetylcholine. Nicotinic receptors get their name from nicotine which does not stimulate the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors but selectively binds to the nicotinic receptors instead.^[3][4][5] The muscarinic acetylcholine receptor likewise gets its name from a chemical that selectively attaches to that receptor — muscarine.^[6] Acetylcholine itself binds to both muscarinic and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors.^[7]

As ionotropic receptors, nAChRs are directly linked to ion channels. New evidence suggests that these receptors can also use second messengers (as metabotropic receptors do) in some cases.^[8] Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors are the best-studied of the ionotropic receptors.^[3]

Since nicotinic receptors help transmit outgoing signals for the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, nicotinic receptor antagonists such as hexamethonium interfere with the transmission of these signals. Thus, for example, nicotinic receptor antagonists interfere with the baroreflex^[9] that normally corrects changes in blood pressure by sympathetic and parasympathetic stimulation of the heart.