'Alert' Brain Is Ever 'Vigilant'.

• Position: NEUROCIRCUITRY - Brief article

Using a molecular method likely to become widely adopted by the field, researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md., have discovered brain circuitry essential for alertness or vigilance--and for brain states more generally. Strikingly, the same cell types and circuits are engaged during alertness in zebrafish and mice, species whose evolutionary forebears parted ways hundreds of millions of years ago. This suggests that the human brain is likely similarly wired for this state critical to survival.

"Vigilance gone awry marks states such as mania and those seen in post-traumatic stress disorder and depression," explains Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. "Gaining familiarity with the molecular players in a behavior--as this new tool promises--may someday lead to clinical interventions targeting dysfunctional brain states."

Karl Deisseroth (professor of bioengineering and psychiatry and behavioral sciences), Matthew Barron (postdoctoral...