Melanocortinergic circuits from medial vestibular nuclei to the kidney defined by transneuronal transport of pseudorabies virus.

This study was designed to assess whether MC4R signaling existed in vestibular nuclei modulated the activity of kidney by a virally mediated transsynaptic tracing study. Pseudorabies virus (PRV)-614 was injected into the kidney in adult male MC4R-green fluorescent protein (GFP) transgenic mice (n = 5). After a survival time of 5 days, the mice were assigned to humanely sacrifice, and the brainstem were removed and sectioned, and processed for PRV-614 visualization. The neurochemical phenotype of MC4R-GFP-positive neurons was identified using fluorescence immunocytochemical labeling. PRV-614/MC4R-GFP dual labeled neurons were detected in medial vestibular nuclei. Our findings support the hypothesis that there exist melanocortinergic circuits from medial vestibular nuclei to the kidney.