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Science 12 January 1996:
Vol. 271. no. 5246, pp. 216 - 219
DOI: 10.1126/science.271.5246.216
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Reports

Activation of Ventrolateral Preoptic Neurons During Sleep

J. E. Sherin,  P. J. Shiromani,  R. W. McCarley,  C. B. Saper (1)

The rostral hypothalamus and adjacent basal forebrain participate in the generation of sleep, but the neuronal circuitry involved in this process remains poorly characterized. Immunocytochemistry was used to identify the FOS protein, an immediate-early gene product, in a group of ventrolateral preoptic neurons that is specifically activated during sleep. The retrograde tracer cholera toxin B, in combination with FOS immunocytochemistry, was used to show that sleep-activated ventrolateral preoptic neurons innervate the tuberomammillary nucleus, a posterior hypothalamic cell group thought to participate in the modulation of arousal. This monosynaptic pathway in the hypothalamus may play a key role in determining sleep-wake states.


J. E. Sherin, Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, MA 02215; Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115; and Committee on Neurobiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
P. J. Shiromani and R. W. McCarley, Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, and Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Brockton Veterans Administration Hospital, Brockton, MA 02401, USA.
C. B. Saper, Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, MA 02215, and Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
(1) To whom correspondence should be addressed at the Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Hospital, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA. E-mail: csaper{at}bih.harvard.edu


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