Dr. Shumin Duan and Dr. Yan-Qin Yu/'s group published in Current Biology

On March 6, 2014, a paper titled Selective Activation of Cholinergic Basal Forebrain Neurons Induces Immediate Sleep-wake Transitions was published in Current Biology. It's accomplished by the lab of Duan Shumin in the neuroscience institute of Zhejiang University.

The basal forebrain (BF) plays a crucial role in cortical activation. However, the exact role of cholinergic BF (ch-BF) neurons in the sleep-wake cycle remains unclear. We demonstrated that photostimulation of ch-BF neurons genetically targeted with channelrhodopsin 2 (ChR2) was sufficient to induce an immediate transition to waking or rapid eye movement (REM) sleep from slow-wave sleep (SWS). Light stimulation was most likely to induce behavioral arousal during SWS, but not during REM sleep, a result in contrast to the previously reported photostimulation of noradrenergic or hypocretin neurons that induces wake transitions from both SWS and REM sleep. Furthermore, the ratio of light-induced transitions from SWS to wakefulness or to REM sleep did not significantly differ from that of natural transitions, suggesting that activation of ch-BF neurons facilitates the transition from SWS but does not change the direction of the transition. Excitation of ch-BF neurons during wakefulness or REM sleep sustained the cortical activation. Stimulation of these neurons for 1 hr induced a delayed increase in the duration of wakefulness in the subsequent inactive period. Our results suggest that

activation of ch-BF neurons alone is sufficient to suppress SWS and promote wakefulness and REM sleep.

This work was supported by grants from the Major State Basic Research Program of China, the National Key Technology R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Program of Introducing Talentsof Discipline to Universities, and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China.

  --- Yong Han, Yu-feng Shi, Wang Xi, Rui Zhou, Zhi-bing Tan, Hao Wang, Xiao-ming Li, Zhong Chen, Guoping Feng, Minmin Luo, Zhi-li Huang, Shumin Duan*, and Yan-qin Yu*. Selective Activation of Cholinergic Basal Forebrain Neurons Induces Immediate Sleep-wake Transitions. Current Biology. 2014 Mar 17; 24(6):693-698.