Mechanisms regulating adult neurogenesis in the hypothalamus using a genetic inducible-approach to label and optogenetically stimulate hypothalamic neural progenitors

Abstract

Chapter 1: Review of adult neurogenesis in the hypothalamus 1 Historical overview of adult neurogenesis 1 The canonical neurogenic niches 3 Emerging sites of adult neurogenesis 8 Structure and functions of the hypothalamus 9 Adult hypothalamic neurogenesis Initial studies Cell proliferation in the adult hypothalamus Chapter 4: Optogenetic stimulation of nestin-expressing cells induced an increase in newly-generated cells near tanycytes Background Purinergic signalling in Tanycytes Purinergic signalling in neural stem/progenitor cells Using optogenetics to stimulate intracellular calcium waves and ATP release Aims Methods Animals In vitro validation In vivo opto-stimulation experiment Results ChR2-YFP expression in NCE-ChR2Y mice is not exclusively restricted to tanycytes In vitro validation In vivo characterization and experiments Discussion Optogenetic stimulation in acute brain slices induced calcium responses in tanycytes reminiscent of those elicited by ATP Optogenetic stimulation of tanycytes could induce downstream signalling in parenchymal cells Tanycytes represent the majority of opto-responsive hypothalamic cells, albeit non-specific ChR2 expression Short-term in vivo optogenetic stimulation of nestinexpressing hypothalamic cells Long-term in vivo optogenetic stimulation of nestinexpressing hypothalamic cells Summary General summary of discussion Regulation of adult hypothalamic neurogenesis by extrinsic stimuli Genetic labelling of putative hypothalamic neural stem/ progenitor cells Optogenetic stimulation of putative hypothalamic neural stem/progenitor cells Concluding remarks References vii Abbreviations 3V 3 rd ventricle 4-OHT 4-hydroxy tamoxifen