Publications by authors named "Brittany G Pittman"
Article Synopsis
- Anxiety is a common emotional response to perceived threats, and anxiety disorders are the most widespread psychiatric conditions, often leading to other health issues.
- Research identified a specific group of brainstem neurons, called C1 cells, that are linked to anxiety by influencing behaviors through connections to other brain regions, indicating their role in processing stress and fear.
- Activating C1 cells increased anxiety-like responses, while suppressing their activity reduced stress-related anxiety, suggesting they could be a target for more effective anxiety treatments.
As discovery of cellular diversity in the brain accelerates, so does the need for tools that target cells based on multiple features. Here we developed Conditional Viral Expression by Ribozyme Guided Degradation (ConVERGD), an adeno-associated virus-based, single-construct, intersectional targeting strategy that combines a self-cleaving ribozyme with traditional FLEx switches to deliver molecular cargo to specific neuronal subtypes. ConVERGD offers benefits over existing intersectional expression platforms, such as expanded intersectional targeting with up to five recombinase-based features, accommodation of larger and more complex payloads and a vector that is easy to modify for rapid toolkit expansion.
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