This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The nervous system exerts profound regulatory influence over peripheral physiology and this control is essential for homeostasis and coordinating adaptive changes across physiological systems. The regulatory oversight exerted by the brain necessary for the integrated action within and among these systems is considerable, and the brain meets this challenge through regulation of the autonomic nervous system and neuroendocrine control over the pituitary gland; the general goal of this research program is to understand the organization of this regulation. During the past 25 years much has been learned about how the brain controls the autonomic nervous system and this project continues that work by addressing two fundamental questions that remain unanswered. First, what is the nature of the brain circuitry that allows both selective control of specific tissues and also global control involved in activating all sympathetic outflows as occurs in response to certain stressors. Second, what are the brain circuits that provide for the coordinated control of sympathetic and parasympathetic outflows such that when sympathetic activity is increased parasympathetic activity decreases. This project examines these issues using novel neuroanatomical techniques relying on a genetically engineered virus that gets passed among connected nerve cells thereby allowing the visualization of neural circuits in rats. Understanding the nature of these neural circuits is essential for understanding of physiological regulation in mammals. In addition to addressing key questions pertaining to the organization of central autonomic circuits, these studies will provide strong foundational support for this methodology, which can be generally applied to complex neuroanatomical issues. Also, undergraduate student researchers are incorporated into all aspects of this research program, and this project provides an excellent opportunity to immerse undergraduate students in basic neurobiological research. One component of this is the development of a new course in autonomic neuroscience, in which students will be given their own component of this project to develop, analyze, and present their findings.
