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Burst firing sets the stage for depression

Salvos of neuronal activity in the brain’s lateral habenula, regulated by astrocyte cells, drive depression-like behaviours in rodents. The finding might help us to understand one antidepressant and to develop more.
  1. William M. Howe

    1. William M. Howe is in the Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, USA.

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  2. Paul J. Kenny

    1. Paul J. Kenny is in the Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, USA.

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Opposing forces shape our everyday lives — for instance, stimuli can encourage us to move or stop, and events can make us happy or sad. Accordingly, our brains are designed with ‘yin–yang’ systems that guide our actions and influence our feelings. Neurons in the brain’s mesolimbic system promote reward-seeking behaviour and help to process information about actions that result in pleasurable outcomes1–3. By contrast, neurons in the lateral habenula (LHb) encode information related to noxious outcomes and suppress reward-seeking4–6. Unbalancing these opposing systems might therefore affect our behaviour. Indeed, emerging evidence7 suggests that LHb hyperactivity contributes to mood disorders such as major depression. Two papers8,9 in Nature now shed light on the mechanisms that underlie LHb hyperactivity, and on how the antidepressant drug ketamine modulates this state.

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Nature 554, 304-305 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-01588-z

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