The hypocretin/orexins (Hcrts/ORXs) are peptides produced in neurons in the lateral hypothalamic area that project to neuroendocrine centers in the hypothalamus. Hcrt/ORX receptors are present in the hypothalamus and anterior pituitary gland. We examined the possibility that the Hcrts/ORXs, which we have demonstrated previously to act in the brain to stimulate sympathetic function, could alter ...

New corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) antagonists in irritable bowel disease (IBS) warrant testing, and CRF1 receptors may be a promising target for the treatment of IBS.

To the Editors: In their review, Brooks-Kayal et al. (2013) provided guidelines for using certain assays to study epilepsy-associated depression in the laboratory. These guidelines should be further refined so as to improve construct validity of models in question, throughput of preclinical trials, and the reliability of the findings. 1 The authors propose the Porsolt test to study the inabilit...

Studies have shown that sleep recovery following different protocols of forced waking varies according to the level of stress inherent to each method. Sleep deprivation activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and increased corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) impairs sleep. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate how manipulations of the CRH system during the sleep deprivati...