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Serotonergic neurons in the median raphe nucleus mediate anxiety- and depression- like behavior

LI Shuang, YAO Wen-Qing, TAO Ye-Zheng, Ma Lan, LIU Xing^*

The Pharmacology Research Center, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China

Abstract

Serotonin (5-hydroxtryptamine, 5-HT), one of the central neurotransmitters, is the most important modulator for emotion regulation, sensory processing, cognitive control, etc. The serotonergic neurons are limited in amount and mainly distributed in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DR) and the median raphe nucleus (MR) in the midline of the brain stem. Previous studies mainly focused on the function of 5-HT neurons in the DR, but little is known about 5-HT neurons in MR. In the present study, with Pet1-Cre transgenic mice and DREADDs technology, we specifically activated or silenced 5-HT neurons in the MR, and aimed to explore their roles in anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors. The results showed that silencing 5-HT neurons in the MR decreased anxiety-like behaviors in the open field and elevated plus maze tasks. Inhibition of 5-HT neurons in the MR decreased depressive-like behaviors in the sucrose preference and forced swim test, while activation of 5-HT neurons in the MR enhanced depressive-like behaviors in the sucrose preference test. These results suggest that the 5-HT neurons in the MR play a key role in regulating anxiety- and depression-like behaviors.

Key words: Serotonin; median raphe nucleus; system anxiety; depression

Received: 2018-03-05　　Accepted: 2018-05-22

Corresponding author: 刘星　　E-mail: xingliu@fudan.edu.cn

DOI: 10.13294/j.aps.2018.0044

Citing This Article：

LI Shuang, YAO Wen-Qing, TAO Ye-Zheng, Ma Lan, LIU Xing. Serotonergic neurons in the median raphe nucleus mediate anxiety- and depression- like behavior. Acta Physiol Sin 2018; 70 (3): 228-236 (in Chinese with English abstract).