Cognitive, Behavioral, and Systems NeuroscienceResearch PaperLocus coeruleus neuronal activity during the sleep-waking cycle in mice
Section snippets
Animals and surgery
All procedures were approved by the University of Lyon 1 Animal Care Committee, the standards of which meet those of the EEC Guidelines (86/609/EEC) and the Policy on Ethics approved by the Society for Neuroscience (1993). All efforts were made to minimize the number of animals used and their suffering.
Fifteen male adult C57BL/6 mice (Harlan, France; 25–34 g at the time of surgery) were used. The mice were anesthetized using a mixture of 0.8 mg/ml of ketamine (Imalgene 1000, Merial, Lyon,
Results
Extracellular single unit recordings were made from a total of 71 NA-LC neurons during the complete sleep-waking cycle, including at least one PS. In light of previous studies in rats demonstrating the presence of distinct topographic distribution within the NA-LC (Loughlin et al., 1986, España and Berridge, 2006), we divided the LC into rostral, middle, and caudal regions, as shown in Fig. 1, in which the histological localization of the recording sites is depicted. As shown in this figure,
Discussion
For the first time in non-anesthetized, head-restrained mice, we have determined the properties and activity profiles of the single-unit discharge of NA-LC neurons during the complete sleep-waking cycle and their state transitions. We found that the neurons exhibited a remarkably homogeneous spike shape and pattern of unit activity: (1) they displayed triphasic, broad action potentials and were active only during W, discharging as either single spikes or clusters of 2–6 spikes; (2) they
Conclusion
The present study suggests that the sleep process does not start with the activation of forebrain sleep-promoting neurons, but with a cascade of disfacilitation of forebrain and brainstem waking-promoting neurons, NA-LC neurons playing a central role in this process.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by INSERM U628 and Claude Bernard University in France and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(C), 20500288, 2009 in Japan.
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