Limbic Modulation of Arousal and Alerting

描述（由申请人提供）：本项目的长期目标是 进一步了解情绪因素如何影响睡眠， 对环境刺激的反应。情绪状态有很大的影响 我们如何应对我们所经历的情况和事件，它也有一个 对睡眠质量和睡眠量有很大影响。这种说法既直观 事实上，我们观察到的情感因素在人类中的作用也支持了这一观点。 临床睡眠医学和精神疾病，其中睡眠是 影响。然而，情绪在基础睡眠中的作用实际上被忽视了 研究，可能是因为缺乏明确的解剖学重点，或者 因为缺乏成熟的模式。杏仁核，大脑边缘系统的“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， 核的情绪，和新兴的证据表明，杏仁核是一个 唤醒状态强调节剂。我们计划有选择地 杏仁核和脑干的区域：1）检查杏仁核的作用 调节睡眠中输入和输出核以及自发产生的神经元 警告的标志。2)检查杏仁核输入和输出核团的作用 调节睡眠以应对可怕的暗示和环境。3)检查 这些核团在调节大脑机制中的作用， 可怕的线索和背景。4)研究的可能性， 睡眠和警觉的恐惧线索和背景是通过轨迹介导的 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。 环境中的特定和非特定刺激，他们会 确定相关的神经结构。这些研究可能提供关键的 深入了解睡眠障碍的发展， 因素，如失眠和精神障碍，其中睡眠受到影响。这 工作也可能与创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）特别相关， 其典型特征是在睡眠中的显著睡眠障碍， 暴露在心理创伤压力源下的后果

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.