Amine pathways and sleep regulation.

Abstract

The development of histofluorescence anatomical techniques has allowed a wide variety of direct new approaches to be applied to studies of the functions of the reticular formation. Many reticular nuclei and pathways, previously poorly understood, have now taken on a specific chemical identity. Thus, it has been possible to directly visualize constituent biogenic amine systems in the core of the brainstem and manipulate these by pharmacological, lesioning and stimulation procedures. Biochemical neuroanatomy has, therefore, provided the essential chemical dissections of neuronal systems as a basis for examining the individual roles of neurotransmitters in behavior. In sleep biology transmitter morphology has directly led to monoamine interaction theories of the entire vigilance continuum and has identified the substrates critical for pharmacological approaches to unravelling the roles of individual amine systems in different aspects of the sleep-waking states. Various of these studies as applied to sleep biology are reviewed in this paper.