Sleepless In The Aquarium

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Also Included In: Sleep / Sleep Disorders / Insomnia
Article Date: 29 Dec 2006 - 17:00 PDT

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You"d think fish would not have that much on their minds to keep them up at night. But this week, Prober et al. describe transgenic zebrafish with a sleep disorder, a model system that may be useful in studies of sleep regulation. The authors first determined that hypocretin, the best characterized sleep-wake regulator in mammals, is expressed in hypothalamic neurons of 5-d-old zebrafish in a pattern strikingly similar to that of mammals. The authors then engineered transgenic fish with a hypocretin promoter that could be induced by heat shock. Overexpression of the gene in zebrafish larvae promoted wakeful activity, hyperarousal, and inability to stay still, hallmarks of insomnia in humans. The effects of hypocretin overexpression were more dramatic in the absence of circadian cues, suggesting that the circadian system may normally antagonize hypocretin function.

David A. Prober, Jason Rihel, Anthony A. Onah, Rou-Jia Sung, and Alexander F. Schier

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