Title: Investigating Cellular Targets in Narcolepsy and Other Arousal-Based Disorders with Single-Cell Spatial Transcriptomics and Optogenetics
Presenter: Roberto De Luca, PhD
Neuroscientist in the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Department of Neurology Harvard Medical School
Abstract:
In narcolepsy, sleep attacks and state instability are caused by the loss of orexin/hypocretin neurons in both animals and humans. However, the cellular and circuit mechanisms by which orexin/hypocretin neurons contribute to consolidated arousal and wakefulness remain unclear.
In this webinar, Roberto De Luca, a neuroscientist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, will describe newly revealed long-range and local circuitry that provides a new framework for understanding how pathologic loss of orexin/hypocretin neurons results in the inability to maintain consolidated wakefulness in narcolepsy and suggests a novel cellular target for treating a wide range of arousal-based disorders.
Using a combination of in vivo optogenetics, in vitro optogenetically-based circuit mapping, and single-cell transcriptomics, De Luca and colleagues demonstrated that orexin/hypocretin neurons contribute to arousal maintenance through indirect inhibition of sleep-promoting neurons of the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus (VLPO).
Webinar learning objectives:
Define the neuronal circuits that modulate the VLPO in sleep and wakefulness.
List the key populations in the VLPO that have a pivotal role in sleep and wakefulness.
