Authors
Liang Xia, Xuan Wang, Yingchi Zhang, Jianmin Hao, Dan Mi, Changgeng Song, Wen Jiang
Published in
CNS neuroscience & therapeutics. Volume 32. Issue 10. Pages e71207.
Abstract
Patients with chronic temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) frequently experience various sleep disorders, characterized by reduced sleep duration, diminished sleep stages, and disrupted sleep patterns. Recent research has identified a population of GABAergic neurons in the ventral zona incerta (ZI) that is instrumental in promoting sleep, along with a neural pathway that connects the cerebellar dentate nucleus (CDN) to the ZI. However, the precise role of this circuit in regulating sleep patterns remains inadequately understood.
This study employed anatomical, chemogenetic, optogenetic, and immunofluorescence staining techniques to investigate the potential of the CDN-ZI circuit in ameliorating sleep disturbances associated with TLE.
Our findings indicate that pilocarpine-treated mice exhibit significant sleep fragmentation and reduced sleep duration, particularly during non-rapid eye movement sleep. By employing optogenetic and chemogenetic methods to target CDN glutamatergic neurons, we observed a decrease in sleep fragmentation, an increase in overall sleep duration, and an enhancement in sleep quality in pilocarpine-treated mice. The inhibition of the CDN-ZI glutamatergic circuit through optogenetic and chemogenetic methods resulted in substantial improvements in sleep disturbances following TLE.
Targeting the CDN-ZI glutamatergic circuit represents a promising therapeutic strategy for addressing sleep disorders resulting from chronic TLE.
PMID:
42870512
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 14 Oct 2026.
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