Distribution of binding sites for 125I-labeled alpha-bungarotoxin in normal and deafferented antennal lobes of Manduca sexta.

Abstract
125I-Labeled .alpha.-bungarotoxin was used to determine the distribution of putative acetylcholine receptors in normal and chronically deafferented antennal lobes in the brain of the moth M. sexta. Toxin-binding sites were confined to synaptic regions in the neuropil of normal lobes and to rudiments of these regions in deafferented lobes. Receptors apparently can develop in the insect CNS independently of normal synaptic influences.