Mutations that increase constitutive activity and alter ligand binding have been used to investigate the structure and mechanism of activation of muscarinic receptors. These data are reviewed with reference to the recently published three-dimensional structure of rhodopsin. Residues in TM3 and TM6 where amino acid substitutions increased constitutive activity align with residues within the core of the receptor. A nucleus of these residues is located immediately below the predicted binding site of acetylcholine. The i2 loop where mutations also increase constitutive activity was found to loop away from the i3 loop, which has been found to modulate G-protein coupling specificity.