Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id JAA10347 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 7 Aug 2000 09:00:10 +0100 Message-ID: <A4400389479FD3118C9400508B0FF230040EA4@DELTA> From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Simple neural models Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 09:56:02 +0200 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>I only read about NO here and there, but I recall some workers have focused
on >it.
Oh yes, it was all the rage in the early 90s. I spent a year (most of 1994,
if I remember rightly) working on nitric oxide synthase (known as NOS,
rhyming with boss, in the trade) which is the enzyme that synthesises nitric
oxide, using N-methyl-arginine (NMA), which is a NOS inhibitor, and NADPH
diaphorase staining which is a histochemical technique that stains up cells
that are expressing active NOS. The staining was a real pain the neck
technically, and NMA didn't seems to have any effects in any of the systems
I was looking at. Everyboy was doing it at the time, it became a bit of a
joke at conferences - you had to get nitric oxide into your talk or poster
somehow, even if it wasn't really relevant to the subject! It was one of
the trendiest buzzwords I can remember (although homeoboxes in the
mid-to-late-80s came pretty close). I don't really follow it any more, it
brings back too many memories of having my head stuck in a fume cupboard
doing diaphorase staining. Most people dabbled in it for a while and
drifted onto other things. However, you still occasionally see articles
with titles like the following:
Shinde UA, Mehta AA, Goyal RK (200) Nitric oxide: a molecule of the
millennium. Indian J Exp Biol 2000 Mar;38(3):201-10
so obviously it can still raise some enthusiasm in some people!!
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