Role of GABAergic neurotransmission in the sleep homeostat of Drosophila melanogaster

NARA I MURARO; FLORENCIA FERNANDEZ

Buenos Aires

Simposio; Fronteras en Biociencias II; 2016

IBioBA-CONICET-MPSP y la Sociedad Max Planck de Alemania

The study of fly sleep behavior is relativelynovel and is therefore a fertile field for new research lines. Sleepdeprivation, caused either by environmental or physiological factors, is likelyto interfere with the synaptic homeostasis processes associated to sleep. Theaim of this project is to describe sleep deprivation-associated changes ofsynaptic plasticity in the large lateral ventral neurons (lLNvs). These neuronsintersect the sleep and circadian circuits of Drosophila and, interestingly,have been described to undergo synaptic changes under different environmentalconditions, including situations where sleep pressure is imposed to theorganism. We are studying the levels and distribution of different synapticmarkers after sleep deprivation, in particular we are assessing peptidergic andclassical neurotransmission. Moreover, via RNAi-mediated downregulation of theGABA receptor on lLNvs, we are analyzing the role of predicted GABAergic inputsthat mediate homeostatic sleep regulation into the phenomenon of synapticplasticity studied. Information obtained from this research project will helpto produce a model of synaptic plasticity in the context of sleep deprivation.Moreover, it will contribute to the understanding of how arousal neurons processinformation and translate it into its neuronal outputs.