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 antidepressant-like behavioral responses. However, only short-term activation induces anxiogenic-like behaviors. In parallel, these behavioral phenotypes were associated with a metabolic map of whole brain network activity via a recently developed non-invasive imaging technology DREAMM (DREADD Associated Metabolic Mapping). Our findings reveal a previously unappreciated brain network elicited by selective activation of DRN serotonin neurons and illuminate potential therapeutic and adverse effects of drugs targeting DRN neurons.
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Urban, D., Zhu, H., Marcinkiewcz, C. et al. Elucidation of The Behavioral Program and Neuronal Network Encoded by Dorsal Raphe Serotonergic Neurons. Neuropsychopharmacol 41, 1404–1415 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2015.293
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2015.293
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