Yawning coupled with penile erection is a conserved neurobehavioral syndrome mediated by the paraventricular hypothalamus (PVH). However, the distinct roles of oxytocin and its co-transmitters remain unresolved. Using chemogenetics, we showed that activation of PVH oxytocin neurons was sufficient to elicit both responses, whereas silencing these neurons abolished them. Viral tracing revealed that these neurons project collater...

Exposure to chronic hypoxia is considered to be a risk factor for deficits in brain function in adults, but the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Since active myelinogenesis persists in the adult central nervous system, here we aimed to investigate the impact of chronic hypoxia on myelination and the related functional consequences in adult mice. Using a transgenic approach to label newly-generated myelin sheaths (...

Increasing evidence has shown that astrocytes are implicated in regulating oligodendrocyte myelination, but the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. To understand whether microRNAs in astrocytes function in regulating oligodendroglial differentiation and myelination in the developing and adult CNS, we generated inducible astrocyte-specific Dicer conditional knockout mice (hGFAP-CreERT; Dicer fl/fl). By using a reporte...