Böke Hanna, Schulte Hannah, Worm Maria, Bihorac Julia, Mücher Brix, Hadamitzky Martin, Siveke Ida, Herlitze Stefan, Spoida Katharina
Department of General Zoology and Neurobiology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Immunobiology, Center for Translational Neuro- Behavioral Sciences (C-TNBS), University Hospital Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2025 Jun 5;19:1540947. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2025.1540947. eCollection 2025.
Constitutive activity of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) plays an important role in brain function and disease including neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders. The non-visual opsin Opn7b is a constitutively active G coupled GPCR which has been used to synchronize neuronal networks. Here we show that expression of Opn7b in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and the ventral tegmental area, two interconnected brain areas involved in modulating fear and stress responses, reduces the number of cFos positive neurons and modulates avoidance behavior in mice. Thus, by constitutively activating the G pathway Opn7b can be used as a tool to reduce cFos expression and to link cFos-expressing neurons to network- and pathway-specific behavior.
G蛋白偶联受体（GPCRs）的组成性活性在脑功能和疾病（包括神经退行性疾病和精神疾病）中发挥着重要作用。非视觉视蛋白Opn7b是一种组成性激活的G偶联GPCR，已被用于同步神经元网络。在这里，我们表明，在终纹床核和腹侧被盖区（两个参与调节恐惧和应激反应的相互连接的脑区）中表达Opn7b，可减少小鼠中cFos阳性神经元的数量并调节回避行为。因此，通过组成性激活G途径，Opn7b可作为一种工具来降低cFos表达，并将表达cFos的神经元与网络和通路特异性行为联系起来。
