Elsevier

Neuroscience Research

Volume 49, Issue 4, August 2004, Pages 417-420
Neuroscience Research

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Extracellular histamine level in the frontal cortex is positively correlated with the amount of wakefulness in rats

This manuscript is dedicated to the late Dr. Hiroshi Wada to acknowledge his many scientific contributions to histamine studies
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neures.2004.05.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Histaminergic neurons have been strongly implicated in the regulation of wakefulness by activating cortical neurons. However, little is known about histamine release in the cortex during sleep–wake stages. In this study, we monitored the extracellular histamine level in the frontal cortex by in vivo microdialysis coupled with electroencephalogram and electromyogram recordings in freely moving rats. The histamine release was 3.8 times higher during wake episodes than during sleep episodes, being positively correlated (r = 0.845) with the time spent in wakefulness. These findings indicate that the histamine release in the cortex is strongly related to the sleep–wake cycle.

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Acknowledgements

We greatly thank Dr. Osamu Hayaishi for his critical reading of the manuscript and valuable comments. This study was supported in part by grants from the Special Coordination Funds of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (Y.U. and N.E.) and Osaka City.

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