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Sleep

Light sleeper

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 8, page 911 (2007)Cite this article

Hypocretin (HCRT)-producing neurons in the lateral hypothalamus have a role in arousal stability, but it was unknown whether changes in the activity of these neurons actually cause the transition from sleep to wakefulness. To investigate this question, the authors made use of the microbial cation channel channelrhodopsin 2, which depolarizes membranes upon exposure to blue light. They used a lentiviral vector to express channelrhodopsin 2 under the control of a promoter that is specific to HCRT-producing neurons and delivered this vector to the lateral hypothalamus of mice. By using an implanted fibre optic to illuminate this area of the brain, the authors were able to selectively manipulate HCRT-producing neurons in freely moving mice.

To examine the role of HCRT-producing neurons in the sleep-to-wake transition, the authors first determined the frequency and duration of optical stimulation that resulted in the highest increase in neuronal activation, and then observed the effects of this stimulation on the behaviour of the mice. They found that activating the HCRT-producing neurons resulted in significantly reduced latencies from both slow-wave sleep and rapid-eye-movement sleep to wakefulness, compared with controls. There was no effect on the duration of the wakeful periods, indicating that the role of the HCRT-producing neurons is specific to sleep-to-wake transitions.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Adamantidis, A. R., Zhang, F., Aravanis, A. M., Deisseroth, K. & de Lecea, L. Neural substrates of awakening probed with optogenetic control of hypocretin neurons. Nature 17 Oct 2007 (doi: 10.1038/nature06310)

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Authors
  1. Craig Nicholson
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Nicholson, C. Light sleeper. Nat Rev Neurosci 8, 911 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2275

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2275

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