Galanin Neurons Unite Sleep Homeostasis and α2-Adrenergic Sedation.

ABSTRACT: Our urge to sleep increases with time spent awake, until sleep becomes inescapable. The sleep following sleep deprivation is longer and deeper, with an increased power of delta (0.5-4 Hz) oscillations, a phenomenon termed sleep homeostasis [1-4]. Although widely expressed genes regulate sleep homeostasis [1, 4-10] and the process is tracked by somnogens and phosphorylation [1, 3, 7, 11-14], at the circuit level sleep homeostasis has remained mysterious. Previously, we found that sedation induced with α2-adrenergic agonists (e.g., dexmedetomidine) and sleep homeostasis both depend on the preoptic (PO) hypothalamus [15, 16]. Dexmedetomidine, increasingly used for long-term sedation in intensive care units [17], induces a non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM)-like sleep but with undesirable hypotherm

SUBMITTER: Ma Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6868514 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature