title: Role for T-type Ca2+ channels in sleep waves.
abstract: Since their discovery more than 30 years ago, low-threshold T-type Ca(2+) channels (T channels) have been suggested to play a key role in many EEG waves of non-REM sleep, which has remained exclusively linked to the ability of these channels to generate low-threshold Ca(2+) potentials and associated high-frequency bursts of action potentials. Our present understanding of the biophysics and physiology of T channels, however, highlights a much more diverse and complex picture of the pivotal contributions that they make to different sleep rhythms. In particular, recent experimental evidence has conclusively demonstrated the essential contribution of thalamic T channels to the expression of slow waves of natural sleep and the key role played by Ca(2+) entry through these channels in the activation or modulation of other voltage-dependent channels that are important for the generation of both slow waves and sleep spindles. However, the precise contribution to sleep rhythms of T channels in cortical neurons and other sleep-controlling neuronal networks remains unknown, and a full understanding of the cellular and network mechanisms of sleep delta waves is still lacking.
authors.affiliation: School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Museum Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3US, UK, crunelli@cardiff.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Crunelli
authors.forename: Francois
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: David
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Leresche
authors.forename: Régis C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Lambert
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D020747:Calcium Channels, T-Type / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D012894:Sleep Stages / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D020747:Calcium Channels, T-Type