The characterization and anatomical distribution of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) 7 receptor binding sites in brain tissue has been hampered by the lack of a specific radioligand. In the present autoradiographic study, we took advantage of 5-HT 1A knockout and 5-HT 1A/1B double-knockout mice to revisit the pharmacological characterization and anatomical localization of 5-HT 7 binding sites in mouse brain using [ The 5-HT 7 receptor is the most recently identified member of the family of G protein-coupled 5-HT receptors (for review, see Vanhoenacker et al., 2000). The 5-HT 7 receptor has been cloned from rat Ruat et al., 1993;Shen et al., 1993), mouse (Plassat et al., 1993), human (Bard et al., 1993), and guinea pig (Tsou et al., 1994). The receptor is positively coupled to adenylate cyclase, preferentially via Gs. It exhibits a high degree of interspecies homology (approximately 95%) but a low sequence homology with other 5-HT receptors (Ͻ40%). In rat and human, three different splice variants have been described to date, which are thought to have similar pharmacology and function (Heidmann et al., 1997;Krobert et al., 2001). The pharmacological profile of the 5-HT 7 receptor is consistent across all tested species and is characterized by high affinity for the 5-HT 1 agonists 5-CT, 5-HT, and 8-OH-DPAT; and the 5-HT 2 antagonists ritanserin, metergoline, mesulergine, and risperidone. Possible physiological functions for this receptor have been suggested, including relaxation in several vascular preparations (Bard et al., 1993;Shen et al., 1993) and circadian rhythm control via the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus Gannon, 2001). Because 8-OH-DPAT has been shown to exhibit a relatively high affinity for the 5-HT 7 receptor, multiple functions formerly ABBREVIATIONS: