Thirst and Drinking Spark Widespread Activity in the Mouse Brain

Researchers have recorded tens of thousands of brain cells in mice as the animals transitioned from feeling thirsty to quenched.

Written byRuth Williams

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Electrical recordings of approximately 24,000 individual neurons across 34 regions of the mouse brain reveal, in a study published in Science today (April 4), the cells that become activated during thirst, drinking, and satiety. The results show the widespread distribution of neuronal activity at different phases of the process and how these patterns of activity can be largely recapitulated by the stimulation of a specific group of sensory cells.

“[The work provides] a very detailed look at one of the most basic processes that terrestrial animals need to be able to do in order to stay alive,” says neurobiologist Scott Sternson of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Janelia Research Campus who was not involved in the research.

“It’s really a tour de force that they were able to record from so many neurons,” adds neurologist Charles Bourque of McGill University who also did not participate in ...

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Meet the Author

Ruth Williams
Ruth is a freelance journalist. Before freelancing, Ruth was a news editor for the Journal of Cell Biology in New York and an assistant editor for Nature Reviews Neuroscience in London. Prior to that, she was a bona fide pipette-wielding, test tube–shaking, lab coat–shirking research scientist. She has a PhD in genetics from King’s College London, and was a postdoc in stem cell biology at Imperial College London. Today she lives and writes in Connecticut.
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