| First Author | Yu X | Year | 2022 |
| Journal | Science | Volume | 377 |
| Issue | 6601 | Pages | 63-72 |
| PubMed ID | 35771921 | Mgi Jnum | J:329161 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:7310491 | Doi | 10.1126/science.abn0853 |
| Citation | Yu X, et al. (2022) A specific circuit in the midbrain detects stress and induces restorative sleep. Science 377(6601):63-72 |
| abstractText | In mice, social defeat stress (SDS), an ethological model for psychosocial stress, induces sleep. Such sleep could enable resilience, but how stress promotes sleep is unclear. Activity-dependent tagging revealed a subset of ventral tegmental area gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-somatostatin (VTA(Vgat-Sst)) cells that sense stress and drive non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and REM sleep through the lateral hypothalamus and also inhibit corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) release in the paraventricular hypothalamus. Transient stress enhances the activity of VTA(Vgat-Sst) cells for several hours, allowing them to exert their sleep effects persistently. Lesioning of VTA(Vgat-Sst) cells abolished SDS-induced sleep; without it, anxiety and corticosterone concentrations remained increased after stress. Thus, a specific circuit allows animals to restore mental and body functions by sleeping, potentially providing a refined route for treating anxiety disorders. |
