Neuron
Volume 89, Issue 4, 17 February 2016, Pages 683-694
Journal home page for Neuron

Primer
DREADDs for Neuroscientists

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.01.040Get rights and content
Under an Elsevier user license
open archive

To understand brain function, it is essential that we discover how cellular signaling specifies normal and pathological brain function. In this regard, chemogenetic technologies represent valuable platforms for manipulating neuronal and non-neuronal signal transduction in a cell-type-specific fashion in freely moving animals. Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADD)-based chemogenetic tools are now commonly used by neuroscientists to identify the circuitry and cellular signals that specify behavior, perceptions, emotions, innate drives, and motor functions in species ranging from flies to nonhuman primates. Here I provide a primer on DREADDs highlighting key technical and conceptual considerations and identify challenges for chemogenetics going forward.

Keywords

DREADD
chemogenetic
chemical biology
synthetic biology

Cited by (0)