The peptidergic control circuit for sighing

Peng Li, Wiktor A. Janczewski, Kevin Yackle, Kaiwen Kam, Silvia Pagliardini, Mark A. Krasnow () and Jack L. Feldman ()
Additional contact information
Peng Li: Stanford University School of Medicine
Wiktor A. Janczewski: Systems Neurobiology Laboratory, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles
Kevin Yackle: Stanford University School of Medicine
Kaiwen Kam: Systems Neurobiology Laboratory, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles
Silvia Pagliardini: Systems Neurobiology Laboratory, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles
Mark A. Krasnow: Stanford University School of Medicine
Jack L. Feldman: Systems Neurobiology Laboratory, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles

Nature, 2016, vol. 530, issue 7590, 293-297

Abstract: Abstract Sighs are long, deep breaths expressing sadness, relief or exhaustion. Sighs also occur spontaneously every few minutes to reinflate alveoli, and sighing increases under hypoxia, stress, and certain psychiatric conditions. Here we use molecular, genetic, and pharmacologic approaches to identify a peptidergic sigh control circuit in murine brain. Small neural subpopulations in a key breathing control centre, the retrotrapezoid nucleus/parafacial respiratory group (RTN/pFRG), express bombesin-like neuropeptide genes neuromedin B (Nmb) or gastrin-releasing peptide (Grp). These project to the preBötzinger Complex (preBötC), the respiratory rhythm generator, which expresses NMB and GRP receptors in overlapping subsets of ~200 neurons. Introducing either neuropeptide into preBötC or onto preBötC slices, induced sighing or in vitro sigh activity, whereas elimination or inhibition of either receptor reduced basal sighing, and inhibition of both abolished it. Ablating receptor-expressing neurons eliminated basal and hypoxia-induced sighing, but left breathing otherwise intact initially. We propose that these overlapping peptidergic pathways comprise the core of a sigh control circuit that integrates physiological and perhaps emotional input to transform normal breaths into sighs.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16964 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:530:y:2016:i:7590:d:10.1038_nature16964

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature16964

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().