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Functional analysis of the habenulo-raphe pathway using genetic manipulation
â—‹Ryunosuke Amo1,2, Masakazu Agetsuma1, Masae Kinoshita1, Toshiyuki Shiraki1, Shin-ichi
Higashijima3, Masaru Matsuda4, Maximiliano L Suster5, Koichi Kawakami5, Toshio Ohshima2,
Hidenori Aizawa1, and Hitoshi Okamoto1,2
1 )RIKEN Brain Science Institute, 2) Department of Life Science and
Medical Bioscience, Waseda University, 3) NIPS, Okazaki Institute for
Integrative Bioscience, 4 )Center for Bioscience Research and Education,
Utsunomiya University, 5 )Division of Molecular and Developmental
Biology, National Institute of Genetics
The habenula is an evolutionary conserved structure located in the dorsal most part of the
diencephalon. In mammals, the habenula is divided into two parts the lateral and medial
habenula. The lateral habenula receives input from the basal ganglia and sends its information to
serotonergic neurons in the raphe and dopaminergic neurons in the VTA and the substantia nigra.
Although recent studies identified a role for the habenula in regulation of negative reward
information and depression-related behavior, the function of the habenulo-raphe pathway is
largely unknown. The medial habenula also indirectly sends information to the raphe via the
interpeduncular nucleus. Specific modulation of neural activity in the subnuclei of the habenula
is necessary to reveal the function of the habenulo-raphe pathway. We have shown that the
habenula sub-divisions are conserved between mammals and zebrafish (Amo et al., 2010). To
control neural transmission specifically in the subnuclei of habenula, we established the
transgenic lines by using BAC clones for genes specifically expressed in the habenula identified
by GeneChip analysis. Now we are analyzing function of the habenula by using those lines.
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