| First Author | Urban DJ | Year | 2016 |
| Journal | Neuropsychopharmacology | Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 5 | Pages | 1404-15 |
| PubMed ID | 26383016 | Mgi Jnum | J:248671 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6093726 | Doi | 10.1038/npp.2015.293 |
| Citation | Urban DJ, et al. (2016) Elucidation of The Behavioral Program and Neuronal Network Encoded by Dorsal Raphe Serotonergic Neurons. Neuropsychopharmacology 41(5):1404-15 |
| abstractText | 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. |
