Physiological role of the 5HT1AR in the regulation of sleep/wakefulness states

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K21057
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Basic / Social brain science; Environmental physiology(including physical medicine and nutritional physiology)
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba (2017); Kanazawa University (2016)
• Principal Investigator: SAITO Yuki 筑波大学, 国際統合睡眠医科学研究機構, 技術職員 (70732436)
• Research Collaborator: SAKURAI Takeshi ; MAEJIMA Takashi ; SAKIMURA Kenji ; ABE Manabu
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: オレキシン / 5HT1A / セロトニン / 睡眠 / ストレス

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we focused on the functional relationship between orexin neuropeptide and setoronin (5-HT) in the regulation of sleep/wakefulness states.We found that DR 5-HT neurons send abundant axonal projections to orexin neurons.We next generated mice in which 5HT1AR was deleted exclusively in orexin neurons (ox5HT1ARKO). We found that ox5HT1ARKO mice exhibited decrease in amount of wakefulness and increase REM sleep in the dark period.Mild restraint stress induced statistically significant changes in wakefulness and NREM sleep amounts only in ox5HT1AKO mice, although control group showed similar tendency with much smaller extent. Also, after applying 90min of acute physical stress, these mice showed increase the amount of REM sleep. These results suggested that orexin neurons stabilize the activity of 5HT neurons via 5HT1AR to regulate REM sleep.

Free Research Field

神経科学