Sleep/wakefulness cycle is regulated by coordinated interactions between sleep- and wakefulness-regulating neural circuitry. However, the detailed mechanism is far from understood. Here, we found that glutamic acid decarboxylase 67-positive GABAergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are a key regulator of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep in mice. VTA project to multiple brain areas implicated in sleep/wakefulness regulation such as the lateral hypothalamus (LH). Chemogenetic activation of VTA promoted NREM sleep with higher delta power whereas optogenetic inhibition of these induced prompt arousal from NREM sleep, even under highly somnolescent conditions, but not from REM sleep. VTA showed the highest activity in NREM sleep and the lowest activity in REM sleep. Moreover, VTA directly innervated and inhibited wake-promoting orexin/hypocretin neurons by releasing GABA. As such, optogenetic activation of VTA terminals in the LH promoted NREM sleep. Taken together, we revealed that VTA play an important role in the regulation of NREM sleep.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.44928 | DOI Listing |
Neuron
January 2025
Laboratory for Haptic Perception and Cognitive Physiology, RIKEN Center for Brain Science, Wako-shi 351-0198, Saitama, Japan; RIKEN CBS-Kao Collaboration Center (BKCC), Wako-shi 351-0198, Saitama, Japan. Electronic address:
Emotional arousal plays a critical role in determining what is remembered from experiences. It is hypothesized that activation of the amygdala by emotional stimuli enhances memory consolidation in its downstream brain regions. However, the physiological basis of the inter-regional interaction and its functions remain unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Pediatr
January 2025
Service de Physiologie Pédiatrique-Centre du Sommeil-CRMR Hypoventilations Alvéolaires Rares, INSERM NeuroDiderot, Université Paris-Cité, AP-HP, Hôpital Robert Debré, Paris, France.
Unlabelled: It is known that in most cases of congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS), apnoeas and hypoventilation occur at birth. Nevertheless, a detailed description of initial symptoms, including pregnancy events and diagnostic tests performed, is warranted in infants with neonatal onset of CCHS, that is, in the first month of life. The European Central Hypoventilation Syndrome Consortium created an online patient registry from which 97 infants (44 females) with CCHS of neonatal onset and PHOX2B mutation from 10 countries were selected.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neurosci Methods
January 2025
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Gallogly College of Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA.
Background: Recent advances in multimodal signal analysis enable the identification of subtle drug-induced anomalies in sleep that traditional methods often miss.
New Method: We develop and introduce the Dynamic Representation of Multimodal Activity and Markov States (DREAMS) framework, which embeds explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) techniques to model hidden state transitions during sleep using tensorized EEG, EMG, and EOG signals from 22 subjects across three age groups (18-29, 30-49, and 50-66 years). By combining Tucker decomposition with probabilistic Hidden Markov Modeling, we quantified age-specific, temazepam-induced hidden states and significant differences in transition probabilities.
Eur J Neurol
February 2025
Department of Biomedical and NeuroMotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Objective: Disorders of arousal (DoA) are characterized by an intermediate state between wakefulness and deep sleep, leading to incomplete awakenings from NREM sleep. Multimodal studies have shown subtle neurophysiologic alterations even during wakefulness in DoA. The aim of this study was to explore the brain functional connectivity in DoA and the metabolic profile of the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, given its pivotal role in cognitive and emotional processing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlzheimers Dement
January 2025
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA.
Introduction: Sleep disturbances are associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), but the relationship between sleep architecture, particularly rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and AD/ADRD biomarkers remains unclear.
Methods: We enrolled 128 adults (64 with Alzheimer's disease, 41 with mild cognitive impairment [MCI], and 23 with normal cognition [NC]), mean age 70.8 ± 9.
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