Elucidation of The Behavioral Program and Neuronal Network Encoded by Dorsal Raphe Serotonergic Neurons.

ABSTRACT: Elucidating how the brain's serotonergic network mediates diverse behavioral actions over both relatively short (minutes-hours) and long period of time (days-weeks) remains a major challenge for neuroscience. Our relative ignorance is largely due to the lack of technologies with robustness, reversibility, and spatio-temporal control. Recently, we have demonstrated that our chemogenetic approach (eg, Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADDs)) provides a reliable and robust tool for controlling genetically defined neural populations. Here we show how short- and long-term activation of dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) serotonergic neurons induces robust behavioral responses. We found that both short- and long-term activation of DRN serotonergic neurons induce antidepressa

SUBMITTER: Urban DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4793125 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature