{"doi":"10.1101/2020.04.20.051276","title":"Cortical ChAT <sup>+</sup> neurons co-transmit acetylcholine and GABA in a target- and brain-region specific manner","abstract":"Abstract The cerebral cortex contains neurons that express choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and are a potential local source of acetylcholine. However, the neurotransmitters released by cortical ChAT + neurons and their synaptic connectivity are unknown. We show that the nearly all cortical ChAT + neurons are specialized VIP + interneurons that release GABA strongly onto other inhibitory interneurons and acetylcholine sparsely onto layer 1 interneurons and other VIP + /ChAT + interneurons. This differential transmission of ACh and GABA based on the postsynaptic target neuron is reflected in VIP + /ChAT + interneuron pre-synaptic terminals, as quantitative molecular analysis shows that only a subset of these are specialized to release acetylcholine. In addition, we identify a separate, sparse population of non-VIP ChAT + neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex with a distinct developmental origin that robustly release acetylcholine in layer 1. These results demonstrate both cortex-region heterogeneity in cortical ChAT + interneurons and target-specific co-release of acetylcholine and GABA.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":126515,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9546,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":328730,"name":"Wengang Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-8870-2634","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":573983,"name":"Keiramarie Robertson","orcid":"0000-0001-9066-7914","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":317906,"name":"M.A. El-Rifai","orcid":"0000-0002-6566-0734","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":574379,"name":"Andrea F Zanello","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":289747,"name":"Karina Bistrong","orcid":"0000-0003-0972-3339","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":573984,"name":"Arpiar Saunders","orcid":"0000-0001-7540-7452","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":574380,"name":"Brian Wai Chow","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":574381,"name":"Vicente Nuñez","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448901,"name":"Miguel Turrero Garcίa","orcid":"0000-0002-7294-169X","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448908,"name":"Corey C. Harwell","orcid":"0000-0002-8043-5869","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":521206,"name":"Chenghua Gu","orcid":"0000-0002-4212-7232","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":250395,"name":"Bernardo L. Sabatini","orcid":"0000-0003-0095-9177","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":573982,"name":"Adam Granger","orcid":"0000-0002-3953-6764","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":68,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:15:23.509897Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}