Summary The dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) in the midbrain is a key center for serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) expressing neurons. Serotonergic neurons in the DRN have been theorized to encode punishment by opposing the reward signaling of dopamine neurons. Here, we show that DRN neurons encode reward, but not punishment, through 5-HT and glutamate. Optogenetic stimulation of DRN Pet-1 neurons reinforces mice to explore the stimulation-coupled spatial region, shifts sucrose preference, drives optical self-stimulation, and directs sensory discrimination learning. DRN Pet-1 neurons increase their firing activity during reward tasks and this activation can be used to rapidly change neuronal activity patterns in the cortnassociated with 5-HT, they also release glutamate, and both neurotransmitters contribute to reward signaling. These experiments demonstrate the ability of DRN neurons to organize reward behaviors and might provide insights into the underlying mechanisms of learning facilitation and anhedonia treatment.

Motivated by bioluminescent imaging needs for studies on gene therapy and other applications in the mouse models, a bioluminescence tomography (BLT) system is being developed in the University of Iowa. While the forward imaging model is described by the well-known diffusion equation, the inverse problem is to recover an internal bioluminescent source distribution subject to Cauchy data. The primary goal of this paper is to establish the solution uniqueness for BLT under practical constraints despite the illposedness of the inverse problem in the general case.After a review on the inverse source literature, we demonstrate that in the general case the BLT solution is not unique by constructing the set of all the solutions to this inverse problem. Then, we show the uniqueness of the solution in the case of impulse sources. Finally, we present our main theorem that solid/hollow ball sources can be uniquely determined up to non-radiating sources. For better readability, the exact conditions for and rigorous proofs of the theorems are given in the appendices. Further research directions are also discussed. Index TermsBioluminescence tomography (BLT), diffusion equation, inverse source problem, solution uniqueness.