Su-Rong Yang, Zhen-Zhen Hu, Yan-Jia Luo, Ya-Nan Zhao, Huan-Xin Sun, Dou Yin, Chen-Yao Wang, Yu-Dong Yan, Dian-Ru Wang, Xiang-Shan Yuan, Chen-Bo Ye, Wei Guo, Wei-Min Qu, Yoan Cherasse, Michael Lazarus, Yu-Qiang Ding, Zhi-Li Huang
The rostromedial tegmental nucleus (RMTg), also called the GABAergic tail of the ventral tegmental area, projects to the midbrain dopaminergic system, dorsal raphe nucleus, locus coeruleus, and other regions. Whether the RMTg is involved in sleep-wake regulation is unknown. In the present study, pharmacogenetic activation of rat RMTg neurons promoted non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep with increased slow-wave activity (SWA). Conversely, rats after neurotoxic lesions of 8 or 16 days showed decreased NREM sleep with reduced SWA at lights on, which persisted until after lesions of 25 days...
April 13, 2018: PLoS Biology