Central circuitry controlling micturition

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Project Summary The release of urine, known as micturition, is a tightly controlled process. Micturition is an important physiological function necessary to maintain water and salt balance, as well as to expel unwanted molecules from the blood. However, in many animals urine is also released in specific places to communicate with other members of the same species and its release is avoided in other places to avoid detection by predators. Descending projections from the “pontine micturition center” (PMC) to the spinal cord are conserved in mice and humans and trigger urine release. The PMC receives inputs from many higher brain centers and integrates information from these to control micturition. For this reason, in many neuropsychiatric diseases the central control of micturition is compromised resulting in urine incontinence, urine retention, or the volitional release of urine at socially inappropriate times and places. Here we propose to map and study these pathways in mice to understand how circuits that underlie central control of micturition.