Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SLEEPCONTROL (The mechanism of sleep control through a sleep-active sleep-promoting neuron)
Teaser
Sleep is vital for animal and human life and many individuals are suffering from sleeping problems in modern societies. However, little is known about how sleep is controlled. The overall goal of this project is to understand sleep control in a model organism, Caenorhabditis...
Summary
Sleep is vital for animal and human life and many individuals are suffering from sleeping problems in modern societies. However, little is known about how sleep is controlled. The overall goal of this project is to understand sleep control in a model organism, Caenorhabditis elegans. Like other animals and humans, C. elegans shows sleep behavior. Sleep is controlled in both mammals and C. elegans by sleep active neurons. C. elegans uses one single sleep active neuron called RIS, which, like its mammalian counterparts, is GABAergic and peptidergic. Little is known about the control of sleep-active neurons at the molecular level in any system. C. elegans is a molecularly accessible system and solving the regulation of sleep by RIS should be feasible.
Work performed
The work in the first part has focused on functional imaging and the molecular biology of the RIS neuron.
Final results
Novel sleep mutants and circuit mechanisms have been identified that provide insight into the control of sleep in C. elegans and that provide testable hypotheses for other systems.
Website & more info
More info: http://www.mpibpc.mpg.de/14843128/pr_1507.