{"id":1851232,"date":"2018-08-29T09:10:23","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T13:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/?p=1851232"},"modified":"2018-08-29T09:10:23","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T13:10:23","slug":"serotonin-system-map-neurons-1851232","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/serotonin-system-map-neurons-1851232\/","title":{"rendered":"Serotonin system is way more complex than we thought"},"content":{"rendered":"
The serotonin system in the brain is actually at least two different subsystems working in concert, according to new research in mice.<\/p>\n
As Liqun Luo was writing an introductory textbook on neuroscience in 2012, he found himself in a quandary. He needed to include a section about a vital system in the brain controlled by the chemical messenger serotonin, which scientists have implicated in everything from mood to movement regulation. But the research was still far from clear on what effect serotonin has on the mammalian brain.<\/p>\n
“Scientists were reporting divergent findings,” says Luo, a professor in the School of Humanities and 糖心视频s at Stanford University. “Some found that serotonin promotes pleasure. Another group says that it increases anxiety while suppressing locomotion, while others argued the opposite.”<\/p>\nA 3D rendering of the serotonin system in the left hemisphere of the mouse brain reveals two groups of serotonin neurons in the dorsal raphe that project to either cortical regions (blue) or subcortical regions (green) while rarely crossing into the other\u2019s domain. (Credit: Jing Ren\/Stanford)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Fast forward six years, and Luo’s team thinks it has reconciled those earlier confounding results.<\/p>\n
Using neuroanatomical methods they invented, his group’s new research shows that the serotonin system is composed of at least two, and likely more, parallel subsystems that work together to affect the brain in different, and sometimes opposing, ways. For instance, one subsystem promotes anxiety, whereas the other promotes active coping in the face of challenges.<\/p>\n
Blindly touching an elephant<\/h3>\n
“The field’s understanding of the serotonin system was like the story of the blind men touching the elephant,” Luo says.<\/p>\n
“Scientists were discovering distinct functions of serotonin in the brain and attributing them to a monolithic serotonin system, which at least partly accounts for the controversy about what serotonin actually does,” Luo says. “This study allows us to see different parts of the elephant at the same time.”<\/p>\n