Considerations for the Use of DREADDs in Behavioral Neuroscience

There's a technology that's proven to be increasingly useful in the past decade -- it's called DREADD, or "designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs." The current approach is to create a designer receptor that is unlocked by the drug, clozapine-n-oxide, or CNO. Researchers have used it to study the function of populations of neurons or of particular pathways in the brains in rodents, by using the DREADD technique to turn on and off these neurons or pathways. However, last year, a paper published in the journal Science called the use of DREADDs into question. Some people interpreted the paper as an overall indictment of the DREADD technology, though this wasn't the original intent of the authors. Listen to Neuropsychopharmacology's latest podcast to learn more!

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