Topic: parvalbumin-expressing interneurons

The circuitry underlying the initiation, maintenance, and coordination of wakefulness, rapid eye movement sleep, and non-rapid eye movement sleep is not thoroughly understood. Sleep is thought to arise due to decreased activity in the ascending reticular arousal system, which originates in the brainstem and awakens the thalamus and cortex during wakefulness. Despite the conventional association of sleep-wake states with hippocampal rhythms, the mutual influence of the hippocampal formation in regulating vigilance states has been largely neglected. Here, we focus on the subiculum, the main outp

Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) is caused by aggregation of insoluble α-synuclein (α-syn) in neurons and patients exhibit cognitive impairment involving the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Parvalbumin-expressing interneurons (PVIs) are critical for normal cognitive function and are often surrounded by a specialised extracellular matrix, the perineuronal nets (PNNs). Loss of PVIs and PNNs occurs in Alzheimer’s disease but their role in DLB remains unclear. In addition, neuroinflammatory changes may also play an early role in DLB. Using transgenic mice expressing human mutant α-syn (hA30P), we