Limbic Modulation of Arousal and Alerting

描述(申请人提供)：本项目的长期目标是 进一步加深我们对情绪因素如何影响睡眠和 对环境刺激的反应能力。情绪状态对我们有很大的影响 关于我们如何应对我们所经历的情况和事件，它也有一个 对睡眠质量和睡眠时间有很大影响。这句话既是直观的，也是 并被观察到的人类情感因素的作用所支持 临床睡眠医学和精神障碍，其中睡眠 受影响。然而，情绪在基本睡眠中的作用几乎被忽视了 研究，可能是因为缺乏明确的解剖重点，或者 因为缺乏既定的模式。杏仁核，大脑边缘的“中心” 情绪，可能是调节情绪对睡眠影响的关键区域。 关于各种杏仁核的作用，有一套完善的知识体系 情绪中的核，以及新出现的证据表明杏仁核是一种 强烈的唤醒状态调节器。我们计划选择性地灭活特定的 杏仁核和脑干的区域：1)检查杏仁核的作用 调节睡眠和自发产生神经的输入和输出核团 警报的标志。2)研究杏仁核的输入和输出核团的作用 在调节睡眠以应对恐惧的暗示和背景方面。3)研究 这些核团在调节脑电报警机制中的作用 可怕的线索和背景。4)研究以下影响的可能性： 关于睡眠和警觉的可怕线索和背景是通过轨迹调节的 脑干水平的蓝斑。这些研究将有助于阐明 情绪、压力和环境相互作用，影响睡眠和反应 对环境中的特定和非特定刺激，他们会 确定涉及的神经结构。这些研究可能会提供关键的 对睡眠障碍发展的洞察，睡眠障碍具有情绪 因素，如失眠和影响睡眠的精神障碍。这 工作也可能与创伤后应激障碍(PTSD)特别相关， 它的典型特征是明显的睡眠障碍 暴露于心理创伤应激源的后果。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term goal of this project is to further our understanding of how emotional factors influence sleep and responsiveness to environmental stimuli. Emotional state has a major influence on how we react to the situations and events we experience, and it also has a strong influence on sleep quality and amount. This statement is both intuitive and factually supported by the observed role of emotional factors in human clinical sleep medicine and in psychiatric disorders in which sleep is affected. However the role of emotion virtually has been ignored in basic sleep research, possibly because of the lack of a clear anatomical focus, or perhaps because of a lack of established models. The amygdala, the limbic "center" of emotion, may be a key region for modulating the influence of emotion on sleep. There is a well-developed body of knowledge on the role of various amygdaloid nuclei in emotion, and emerging evidence indicating that the amygdala is a strong modulator of arousal state. We plan to selectively inactivate specific regions of the amygdala and brainstem to: 1) examine the role of amygdaloid input and output nuclei in modulating sleep and spontaneously generated neural markers of alerting. 2) examine the role of amygdaloid input and output nuclei in regulating sleep in response to fearful cues and contexts. 3) examine the role of these nuclei in modulating brain mechanisms of alerting in response to fearful cues and contexts. 4) examine the possibility that the effects of fearful cues and contexts on sleep and alerting are mediated through the locus coeruleus at the brainstem level. These studies will help elucidate how emotion, stress and the environment interact to influence sleep and responding to specific and non-specific stimuli in the environment, and they will determine the neural structures involved. These studies may provide critical insight into the development of sleep disorders which have an emotional element, such as insomnia and mental disorders in which sleep is affected. This work also may be especially relevant to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is typically characterized by a prominent sleep disturbance in the aftermath of exposure to a psychologically traumatic stressor.