Effect of Lesions of the Ventrolateral Preoptic Nucleus on NREM and REM Sleep
By Jun Lu, M. Greco, P. Shiromani, Clifford B. Saper. Journal of Neuroscience, 2000
615 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Neurons in the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus (VLPO) in rats show c-fos activation after sleep and provide GABAergic innervation of the major monoamine arousal systems, suggesting that they may be a necessary part of the brain circuitry that produces sleep. We examined the effects on sleep behavior in rats of cell-specific damage to the VLPO by microinjection of ibotenic acid. Severe lesions of the central cell cluster of the VLPO (∼80–90% cell loss bilaterally) caused a 60–70% decrease in delta power and a 50–60% decrease in nonrapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep time (p< 0.001). The number of remaining Fos-immunoreactive neurons in the VLPO cell cluster was linearly related to NREM sleep time (r = 0.77; p < 0.001) and total electroencephalogram delta power (r = 0.79;p < 0.001) but not to rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep (r = 0.35; p > 0.10). Lesions in the region containing scattered VLPO neurons medial or dorsal to the cell cluster caused smaller changes in NREM sleep time (24.5 or 15%, respectively) but were more closely associated with loss of REM sleep (r = 0.74; p < 0.01). The insomnia caused by bilateral VLPO lesions persisted for at least 3 weeks. Lesions of the VLPO caused no change in mean body temperature or its circadian variation; after small lesions of the ventromedial preoptic nucleus, body temperature showed normal circadian variation but a wider temperature range, and sleep behavior was not affected. These experiments delineate distinct preoptic sites with primary effects on the regulation of NREM sleep, REM sleep, and body temperature.
Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Endocrine and Autonomic Systems, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/94d915ac0a534ca7742cf697d33d0791e28aa5d2
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Cognitive Neuroscience
- J. Allan Hobson
- T. Scammell
- J. Lipton
- E. Arrigoni
- E. Pace-Schott
- Jun Lu
- Clifford B. Saper
- Matthew P. Walker
In Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
- J. Allan Hobson
- T. Scammell
- E. Pace-Schott
- J. Lipton
- Jun Lu
- Clifford B. Saper
- E. Arrigoni
- C. Cajochen
In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- J. Allan Hobson
- T. Scammell
- J. Lipton
- E. Arrigoni
- E. Pace-Schott
- Jun Lu
- Clifford B. Saper
- Matthew P. Walker
Citations in the corpus
- Sleep State Switching (2010, background): “Thus, although it is likely that other sleep-promoting neurons participate in the induction and maintenance of sleep, the VLPO neurons appear to play a particularly important role in this process, as VLPO lesions can substantially reduce sleep formonths (Lu et al., 2000).”
- The Neurobiology of Sleep: Genetics, cellular physiology and subcortical networks (2002, background): “The VLPO consists of two subregions, which are termed 'tightly clustered' and 'diffuse' because of their distribution patter”
- Neural Circuitry of Wakefulness and Sleep (2017, positive): “Singleunit recordings and analysis of Fos expression show that NREM sleep-active neurons are concentrated in the VLPO and MnPO (Alam et al., 2014; Sherin et al., 1996), and lesions of these nuclei produce large and long-lasting reductions in sleep (John and Kumar, 1998; Lu et al., 2000).”