Richismita Hazra, Amity University Kolkata
Genes and the neural network together regulate animal sleep. The importance of quality and restful sleep has been dealt with innumerable times before. It was more than 2000 years ago that Greek physician Hippocrates wrote, “Disease exists if either sleep or watchfulness be excessive.” However, our sleep and sleeping habits are under the influence of our environment. Environmental parameters such as noise, light, humidity, and nutrient intakes greatly influence the quality and quantity of sleep.
Professor Chunghun Lim led a research team in the School of Life Sciences at UNIST and has recently disclosed the principle behind the changing sleep patterns per ambient temperature. Drosophila, used as a model to study how genes, neurotransmitters, and neural activity collectively synchronize sleep behaviours. Results suggested that it is due to the rise in temperature that the synapses between the sleep-regulation neurons that send and receive signals using GABA (an inhibitory neurotransmitter) disappear, thereby causing changes in sleep patterns. For observation of their sleep patterns, genetically engineered fruit flies were cultured under temperature, similar to warm summer days.
Shaker (Sh) gene is a gene, the protein produced from which generates a pathway through which potassium ions (K+) pass in the brain. Deficiency of the Shaker (Sh) gene activates nerve cells to suppress sleep. A sample with mutated Shaker Gene was used for the experiment. When cultured in warm environments, sleep suppression was absent. Hence, this emphasized the fact that it is due to the disappearance of the link between dFSB (dorsal Fan-Shaped Body neuron) and GABA that this phenomenon occurred.
This study entrenched a genetic track that accounts for temperature-sensitive GABA transmission to the sleep-promoting neural locus and brings about neural plasticity stimulating the adaptive organization of sleep framework.
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Source: Ji-hyung Kim et al. The voltage-gated potassium channel Shaker promotes sleep via thermosensitive GABA transmission, Communications Biology (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-0902-8
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