Chromatin-level regulation of neural stem/progenitor cell fate

摘要

I will present our latest progress on mapping the neural circuitry involved in the control of dominance behavior. Rapid antidepressant mechanism of ketamine: The discovery of the rapid antidepressant effects of the NMDA receptor antag- onist ketamine is arguably the most significant advance in the field of psychiatry in the last half century. But the mechanism of how ketamine elevates mood so quickly has remained elusive. The rapid “hit-andgo” temporal profile of ketamine suggests that ketamine is likely to act on a system that is tonically in action and has NMDAR channels open. In this talk, I will present data to show how ketamine regulates mood and depression by blocking the burst firing of brain’s anti-reward center, the lateral habenula (LHb). I will also discuss a perisomatic K+ buffering mechanism by which a glial potassium channel regulates LHb neuronal bursting in depression.