Kavli Affiliate: Keri Martinowich
| Authors: Lukas M Weber, Heena R Divecha, Matthew N Tran, Sang Ho Kwon, Abby Spangler, Kelsey D Montgomery, Madhavi Tippani, Rahul Bharadwaj, Joel E Kleinman, Stephanie C Page, Thomas M Hyde, Leonardo Collado-Torres, Kristen R Maynard, Keri Martinowich and Stephanie C Hicks
| Summary:
Norepinephrine (NE) neurons in the locus coeruleus (LC) make long-range projections throughout the central nervous system, playing critical roles in arousal and mood, as well as various components of cognition including attention, learning, and memory. The LC-NE system is also implicated in multiple neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Importantly, LC-NE neurons are highly sensitive to degeneration in both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Despite the clinical importance of the brain region and the prominent role of LC-NE neurons in a variety of brain and behavioral functions, a detailed molecular characterization of the LC is lacking. Here, we used a combination of spatially-resolved transcriptomics and single-nucleus RNA-sequencing to characterize the molecular landscape of the LC region and the transcriptomic profile of LC-NE neurons in the human brain. We provide a freely accessible resource of these data in web-accessible and downloadable formats.