Dr Victoria McAneany from the RSCI, Dublin will deliver a seminar on her research entitled "Rapid Actions of Aldosterone in the Renal Cortical Collecting Duct -From Receptor to Effector”
Research
Details of ongoing research at the Smooth Muscle Research Centre.
The urethra generates spontaneous myogenic tone which is thought to play a role in maintaining urinary continence. However, the mechanisms responsible for the generation of this tone are poorly understood.
(introduction on Corpus Cavernosum Physiology here)
Lymphatic vessels produce regular spontaneous contractions which serve to propel fluid from the interstitium back to the general circulation. These contractions are preceded by action potential complexes (see figure 1) which initiate the phasic contractions. Our research is currently focused on the ionic mechanisms underlying this activity and how these mechanisms are altered by neurotransmitters.
(Introduction on Intracellular Imaging here)
The majority of blood vessels are able to constrict by virtue of the contractile cells present within their walls. Microvessels such as small arterioles and metaarterioles possess primative, poorly differentiated smooth muscle cells compared to the smooth muscle present in larger vessels.
Excitation-contraction coupling in smooth muscle generally depends on increases in the cytoplasmic [Ca] which lead to activation of the contractile proteins. Understanding how these [Ca] signals are generated and terminated is, therefore, central to any understanding of how smooth muscle contracts and relaxes.