The candidate's long-range career goals are to continue to strive to achieve both academic and research excellence within the field of neural control of the circulation with the focus of her research centered on the understanding of the central mechanisms involved in the regulation of cardiovascular function. The candidate strongly believes that the realization of her long-range goals will require the use of multiple experimental tools to integrate answers and observations made at the cellular and molecular levels back to the regulation of blood pressure in the intact animal. More specifically, her short range goals, interests and, hopefully, contributions will continue to focus on the integration of primary baroreceptor afferent information at the level of the nucleus of the solitary tract, and how this integration serves to regulate sympathetic outflow and ultimately arterial blood pressure. The proposed research career award will be instrumental in achieving these goals by offering her the opportunity to focus the extensive time and energy required to not only answer the specific questions of metabotropic glutamate receptor regulation of baroreceptor afferents outlined in the present proposal, but to begin to, hopefully in the future, develop hypotheses concerning the molecular mechanisms governing the expression of these receptors and how this expression may be involved in some forms of hypertension. The University of Missouri and the Dalton Cardiovascular Res. Cntr. fully supports this application and provides a rich physical and intellectual environment for the continued development of the candidate's research career. The project will examine the role of the 1-glutamate metabotropic and I-AP4 receptors in the regulation of baroreceptor neuronal activity. One hypothesized mechanism for baroreceptor afferent integration involves autoreceptive neurotransmission. Neurotransmitters known to be released by baroreceptor neurons (i.e. glutamate) may feedback to modulate their own release.
The specific aims of the project are: 1) To characterize the voltage-gated and calcium-activated ionic currents present in cardiac baroreceptor neurons; 2) To identify the role of glutamate metabotropic receptors in the regulation of both arterial and cardiac baroreceptor voltage-gated Ca++ currents; and 3) To identify the role of glutamate metabotropic receptors in the regulation of both arterial and cardiac baroreceptor voltage-gated K+ currents. These studies are expected to yield specific information concerning neurotransmitter regulation of baroreceptor ion channels and provide a mechanistic theory as to how peripheral baroreceptor afferents may modulate their own activity.
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