A team of Taiwanese, US and Hungarian researchers yesterday said that they have identified a group of cells that regulate anxiety in mice, which is expected to help reduce the side effects of anxiolytic drugs.
While about 2.8 million people in Taiwan in 2019 sought treatment for anxiety disorders, the number of people affected by anxiety might be larger than documented, Chen Hong-chen (陳鴻震), director-general of the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Department of Life Sciences told a news conference in Taipei.
How to regulate anxiety is vital for people in the information era, as well as for brain scientists, and the ministry is seeking more funding for brain-related research to catch up with more advanced countries, he said.
Photo: CNA
While the hippocampus, amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex are known to affect anxiety and melancholy, the team found that mossy cells — a group of neurons in the hippocampal dentate gyrus — correlate with anxiogenic factors in the environment, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) professor Lien Cheng-chang (連正章) said.
The team used calcium imaging tools to observe neurological activity in the mice when they were exploring open or closed spaces in labyrinth models.
When the mice explored an anxiogenic environment that was bright and open, their mossy cell activity significantly increased, while their mossy cell activity dropped when they entered a closed space, showing that they felt safer, Lien said.
Photo: CNA
The team next used optogenetic and chemogenetic tools to regulate mossy cell activity in the mice and found that they performed less anxiety-induced avoidance behavior when their mossy cells were active, he said.
The paper, whose lead author was NYCU doctoral student Wang Kai-yi (王凱誼), was published in the journal Cell Reports on Sept. 14, with the paper featured on the issue’s cover.
Artist Tsai Yu-lin (蔡鈺麟), the father of NYCU assistant professor Tsai Yu-huan (蔡雨寰), painted the cover illustration after being inspired by the mossy cells’ shape and the optogenetic technique used by the team.
Kazu Nakazawa of the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the US and Gabor Tamas of the University of Szeged in Hungary also contributed to the team’s research.
The team in Taiwan imported frozen sperm of a transgenic mouse model from the US, while Tamas’ team helped set up an in vivo juxtacellular recording technique, Lien said.
Hopefully, the team’s research will improve the understanding of anxiety and foster new treatments with fewer side effects, he said.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
RSS