Definition
Chloride channels play an important role in regulating neuronal excitability, especially in the context of fast synaptic inhibition mediated by GABAA and glycine receptors. But in order for chloride channels to reduce excitability, chloride driving force must be maintained via transporters that extrude chloride from the cell. Other transporters load chloride into the cell. The complicated and dynamic balancing of chloride influx and efflux, which also involves a variety of other ion species, directly affects how chloride channels regulate excitability.
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Function
Chloride ions participate in many cellular functions, from helping regulate cellular excitability to helping regulate cell volume. Those functions are mediated through a variety of chloride channels and transporters (Duran et al. 2010; Fig. 1). The regulation of neuronal excitability garners the most attention among neuroscientists. As the dominant charge carrier through GABAAand glycine...
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References
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Prescott, S.A. (2014). Chloride Channels. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_226-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_226-1
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