Sexually-Dimorphic Regulation of Sleep

睡眠对健康的身心至关重要。它受体内平衡的调节， 清醒时的睡眠驱动导致睡眠倾向增加。不过，我们可以熬夜 如果我们有重要或有趣的事情要做，例如，照顾婴儿或阅读报纸， 引人入胜的书。换句话说，睡眠也受到动机状态的调节。因此睡眠驱动器 与其他动机驱动力竞争，以决定我们是否睡觉或从事其他重要或 有趣的活动。我们最近的研究表明，性欲会深刻地影响男性的睡眠， 果蝇和章鱼胺能神经元的一个子集（章鱼胺类似于人类 去甲肾上腺素）通过男性性欲介导睡眠抑制。以前的研究已经表明 雌性果蝇在交配后睡眠较少，产卵较多。因此，男性和女性都调整自己的 满足生殖需求的睡眠模式。然而，睡眠的神经机制和 生殖行为是否平衡还不清楚。在对这一提议的初步研究中， 我们确定了几个以前未被表征的用于平衡睡眠的神经元群体， 男性和女性的生殖行为。新发现的两个种群是 多巴胺能，表明章鱼胺和多巴胺信号通路合作整合 睡眠和生殖行为。我们将确定解剖学和生理学上的联系 在各种神经元群体中，并研究它们在睡眠和生殖中的作用。 使用行为分析，钙成像，电路跟踪， 免疫组化，并产生用于精确操纵特定神经元的新驱动程序。 我们提出的研究提供了一个很好的机会，发现基本的神经机制和一般的 平衡相互竞争的驱动力的组织原则。研究睡眠如何 调节机制与神经机制沟通， 神经调节剂如章鱼胺和多巴胺可能会导致更好地了解如何 人类大脑整合了睡眠驱动和其他动机状态。

Sleep is essential for healthy mind and body. It is regulated by homeostasis, by which accumulated sleep drive during wakefulness leads to increased propensity toward sleep. However, we can stay up late if we have something important or interesting to do, for example, take care of a baby or read a fascinating book. In other words, sleep is also regulated by motivational states. Thus sleep drive competes with other motivational drives to decide whether we sleep or engage in other important or interesting activities. We have recently shown that sex drive profoundly affects male sleep in Drosophila and that a subset of octopaminergic neurons (octopamine is analogous to human norepinephrine) mediates sleep suppression by male sex drive. Previous studies have shown that female flies sleep less and lay more eggs after mating. Thus both males and females adjust their sleep patterns to meet reproductive needs. However, the neural mechanisms of how sleep and reproductive behaviors are balanced are not well understood. In preliminary studies for this proposal, we identified several previously uncharacterized neuronal populations for balancing sleep and reproductive behaviors in males and females. Two of the newly identified populations are dopaminergic, suggesting that octopamine and dopamine signaling pathways cooperate to integrate sleep and reproductive behaviors. We will determine the anatomical and physiological connectivity among the various neuronal populations, and investigate their role in sleep and reproductive behaviors using a combination of behavioral analysis, calcium imaging, circuit tracing, immunohistochemistry, and generation of new drivers for precise manipulation of specific neurons. Our proposed studies offer an excellent opportunity to discover basic neural mechanisms and general organizing principles that underlie the balance between competing drives. Investigating how sleep regulatory mechanisms communicate with neural mechanisms for sexually-dimorphic behaviors using neuromodulators such as octopamine and dopamine may lead to a better understanding of how the human brain integrates sleep drive and other motivational states.