Orexin wakes up your brain by self-excitation mechanism
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - 16:56
in Health & Medicine
For advanced activities of our daily life (such as driving a car, or seeing a movie), to be awake is important. It has been known so far that neuropeptide in the brain called "Orexin" controls sleep and awakening besides appetite. Here, the research group led by Dr. Akihiro Yamanaka, National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), found that orexin-releasing neurons have the self-excitation mechanism that activate each other among them, and maintain awaking. From this result, the application to doze prevention or insomnia treatment can be expected. It is reported in the Journal of Neuroscience of the issue on September 22, 2010.