Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Neuroscientist. 2024 Jun;30(3):328-346. doi: 10.1177/10738584221134587. Epub 2022 Nov 19.
The use of designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs) has led to significant advances in our understanding of the neural circuits that govern behavior. By allowing selective control over cellular activity and signaling, DREADDs have become an integral tool for defining the pathways and cellular phenotypes that regulate sleep, pain, motor activity, goal-directed behaviors, and a variety of other processes. In this review, we provide a brief overview of DREADDs and discuss notable discoveries in the neurosciences with an emphasis on circuit mechanisms. We then highlight methodological approaches to achieve pathway specific activation of DREADDs. Finally, we discuss spatial and temporal constraints of DREADDs signaling and how these features can be incorporated into experimental designs to precisely dissect circuits of interest.
设计受体仅被设计药物激活（DREADD）的使用在我们对控制行为的神经回路的理解方面取得了重大进展。通过允许对细胞活动和信号的选择性控制，DREADD 已成为定义调节睡眠、疼痛、运动活动、目标导向行为和各种其他过程的途径和细胞表型的不可或缺的工具。在这篇综述中，我们简要概述了 DREADD，并讨论了神经科学领域的显著发现，重点是回路机制。然后，我们强调了实现 DREADD 通路特异性激活的方法。最后，我们讨论了 DREADD 信号的时空限制以及如何将这些特征纳入实验设计中以精确剖析感兴趣的回路。
