The ability to stimulate select neurons in isolated tissue and in living animals is important for investigating their role in circuits and behavior. We show that the engineered light-gated ionotropic glutamate receptor (LiGluR), when introduced into neurons, enables remote control of their activity. Trains of action potentials are optimally evoked and extinguished by 380 nm and 500 nm light, re...

The ventral premotor cortex in primates is thought to be involved in sensory-motor integration. Many of its neurons respond to visual stimuli in the space near the arms or face. In this study on the ventral premotor cortex of monkeys, an object was presented within the visual receptive fields of individual neurons, then the lights were turned off and the object was silently removed. A subset of...

Background and Objectives: Studies have documented the morhplogical, neurochemical and functional difference between the dorsal and ventral zones of hippocampus. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of chronic diabetes mellitus type1 on ventral and dorsal zones of hippocampus. Methods: Experimental diabetes was induced by stereptozotocin at a dose of 60 mg/kg. At the end of 8 weeks t...

Dopamine (DA) transmission from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) is critical for controlling both rewarding and aversive behaviors. The transient silencing of DA neurons is one of the responses to aversive stimuli, but its consequences and neural mechanisms regarding aversive responses and learning have largely remained elusive. Here, we report that optogenetic inactivation of VTA DA neurons pr...

Abstract Introduction Narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) is caused by selective loss of orexinergic neurons. Although narcolepsy typically begins in childhood or adolescence, most mouse models induce the orexin peptides neurons from birth. To generate a model that reflects acquired human NT1, we produced recombinant mice expressing diphtheria toxin receptor (DTR) driven prepro-orexin promoter (orexinDTR m...

Receptive fields of 382 neurons in the pulvinar were investigated. The observed receptive fields were classified according to the neurons’ responses to stationary flashing light spots positioned in different parts of the receptive field. New receptive field types with multiple discharge centers were observed. Neurons with these receptive fields generally responded with multimodal discharges to ...

Binocular neurons with receptive fields about 5 degrees across were recorded just beneath the pia. Most of them responded to dark stimuli in the lower half of their receptive field and to light stimuli above. There was almost no vertical disparity between the left and right fields and the modal value of the horizontal disparity of the population of cells was 1.7 degrees. Because frogs do not ve...

The fine structure of a "new" cytoplasmic inclusion in sympathetic neurons of adult rats has recently been described (2) . This inclusion was called a nematosome ("threadlike") and consisted of a convoluted network of electron-opaque strands embedded in a less dense matrix : it averaged 0.9 u in diameter. Morphological similarities between nematosomes, nucleoli, and synaptic material led to the...

Visual and motor properties of single neurons of monkey ventral premotor cortex (area F5) were studied in a behavioral paradigm consisting of four conditions: object grasping in light, object grasping in dark, object fixation, and fixation of a spot of light. The employed objects were six different three-dimensional (3-D) geometric solids. Two main types of neurons were distinguished: motor neu...