The neostriatum is a brain region integrally involved in body movement. Advances in neostriatal research have revealed much about its complex neural inputs and intrinsic organization, including the identification and localization of chemical messengers that activate or inhibit other neurons. The molecular events in neostriatal cells which process the effects of the chemical messengers are poorly understood, but are important to understand how these cells convey information. One of these fundamental cellular processes--called signal transduction of chemical messengers--uses a class of proteins, GTP-binding proteins, to mediate and direct the flow of information by chemical messengers. The overall objective of this study is to examine the cellular localization, regulation and action of specific GTP-binding, transducing proteins in the rat neostriatum. Investigating where signal transducing proteins are localized subcellulary in neostriatal neurons, how these proteins are activated, and what intraneuronal processes they affect should advance the knowledge of cellular mechanisms involved in neuronal targeting of information in the neostriatum.
