28
March 2002
Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
Neurobiology: Anxious moments
Serotonin has important functions in the central nervous system and has been implicated in anxiety and depression. Antagonists of the serotonin1A receptor have anxiolytic properties and knockout mice lacking this receptor show heightened anxiety-like behaviour. A refinement of the knock-out technique now shows that expression of the receptor is required during postnatal development, but not during adulthood, to establish normal anxiety-like behaviour in adult mice. This finding could have potentially wide-reaching implications regarding the importance of postnatal brain development in establishing normal emotional behaviour.
Serotonin1A receptor acts during development
to establish normal anxiety-like behaviour in the adult
CORNELIUS
GROSS, XIAOXI ZHUANG, KIMBERLY STARK, SYLVIE RAMBOZ, RONALD OOSTING, LYNN KIRBY,
LUCA SANTARELLI, SHERYL BECK & REN� HEN
Nature 416, 396–400
(28 March 2002)
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Neurobiology: Serotonin sustains serenity
SOLOMON H. SNYDER
An elegant variation on conventional
gene-knockout techniques can delete a gene at specific times and locations in
mice. The approach shows when and where a serotonin receptor protein is needed
during development.
Nature 416, 377–380 (28 March 2002)
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