Topic: noradrenergic neurons

The nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) of the avian brain is a functional analogue of the mammalian prefrontal cortex. It plays a central role in different types of associative learning, including conditioning and extinction learning. The NCL receives a dense innervation of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) immunopositive fibers, which form characteristic basket formations around their target somata. This distinctive innervation profile enabled the identification of the NCL in pigeons, chickens, zebra finches, crows and blackcaps. In this study, we characterized the catecholaminergic system of the Japane

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative process characterized by the presence of Lewy bodies in different brain regions, affection of many neurotransmitter systems and manifestation of motor and nonmotor symptoms. These latter ones often appear before the motor symptomatology and highly impact on the life quality of the patients. Interestingly, the locus coeruleus (LC) that contains the highest density of noradrenergic neurons in the brain, is among the brain stem areas first displaying Lewy bodies in the disease, and is associated with prodromal non-motor symptoms. Despite its small s

A critical advance in neuroscience is the ability to intervene reversibly in a pathway-specific manner on interactions between brain regions, providing understanding of the causal role of those interactions, but also moving us towards targeted therapies for pathologies linked to neural pathways. We present data on pathway-specific DREADDs (Designer Receptor Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs) in macaque monkeys. This approach is only now emerging for primates, and permits the targeted modulation of a specific neural pathway over a period of hours. We conducted two DREADD experiments to sp

Evading threats relies on deploying complex avoidance strategies such as deciding between escape and motor arrest. Although studies across vertebrates indicate that the brainstem is critical for motor arrest, the mechanisms remain elusive. A recent study in zebrafish showed that upon sensory-motor mismatch, passivity involves noradrenergic signaling eliciting a brain-wide glial calcium wave. However, it remains unknown how noradrenergic activation translates into subsequent glial calcium waves and provokes motor arrest. Our working hypothesis is that noradrenergic neurons integrate intensive s

Neuromelanin (NM) is a black pigment that accumulates in human dopaminergic and noradrenergic neurons throughout life. NM levels beyond a certain threshold are believed to be toxic contribute to neurodegeneration seen in Parkinson's disease. Here, we present a genetically encoded and cell-specific viral strategy to induce NM production in disease models, which naturally do not have detectable levels of NM. We also set out to investigate how different accumulation rates of NM in noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus lead to distinct dynamics in neurodegeneration and associated changes in

The locus coeruleus (LC) noradrenergic (NE) system is involved in a plethora of physiological and pathophysiological processes. Refining our understanding of LC function largely relies on selective transgene expression in molecularly defined cells, allowing targeted manipulation and readout of noradrenergic neurons. Here, we performed a side-by-side comparison of the most commonly used strategies to genetically access the LC, including different cre driver lines and promoter-mediated transgene expression. We report differences between these strategies in terms of transgene expression efficacy