Hui Feng, Qi-Cheng Qiao, Qi-Fa Luo, Jun-Ying Zhou, Fei Lei, Yao Chen, Si-Yi Wen, Wen-Hao Chen, Yu-Jie Pang, Zhi-An Hu, Yi-Bin Jiang, Xu-Yang Zhang, Teng-Yuan Zhou, Xin-Yan Zhang, Nian Yang, Jun Zhang, Rong Hu
Proper timing of vigilance states serves fundamental brain functions. Although disturbance of sleep onset rapid eye movement (SOREM) sleep is frequently reported after orexin deficiency, their causal relationship still remains elusive. Here, we further study a specific subgroup of orexin neurons with convergent projection to the REM sleep promoting sublaterodorsal tegmental nucleus (OXSLD neurons). Intriguingly, although OXSLD and other projection-labeled orexin neurons exhibit similar activity dynamics during REM sleep, only the activation level of OXSLD neurons exhibits a significant positive correlation with the post-inter-REM sleep interval duration, revealing an essential role for the orexin-sublaterodorsal tegmental nucleus (SLD) neural pathway in relieving REM sleep pressure...
2024: Research: a science partner journal