Institut de
Génomique
Fonctionnelle

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Researching neural underpinnings of consciousness is a subject of interest in neurosciences in order to understand how the brain makes adapted decision to stress in order to maintain the life. From this decision results a physiological drive in adequacy with external factors depending on neuronal plasticity. The maladjustment of the reactions to stress could result from limits of the plastic resources of the brain. To test our hypothesis, our molecular, cellular and behavioral analyses are focused on the study of the serotoninergic systems because the survival of organisms depends on their integrity, including from one phylum to another. Indeed, their damages impair survival instinct (depression), adjoined to motivation (addiction) and feeding behavior (anorexia, bulimia). We then study how changes in the activity of serotonin receptors (5-HT1A, 5-HT1B), and in particular the 5-HT4 receptors, and their signaling pathways in vivo alter motivation until to provoke addiction to drugs and refusal to eat despite actual energy requirements.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Jean A, Laurent L, Bockaert J, Charnay Y, Dusticier N, Nieoullon A, Barrot M, Neve R, Compan V (in press) The nucleus accumbens 5-HTR4-CART pathway ties anorexia to hyperactivity Translational Psychiatry (Nature Publishing Group).

Ratner C, Ettrup A, Bueter M, Haahr M, Compan V, Le Roux C, Levin B, Hansen H, GM. K (2012) Cerebral markers of the serotonergic system in rat models of obesity and after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. Obesity (Nature Publishing Group) 20, 10 : 2133-41.

Laurent L, Jean A, Manrique C, Najimi M, Chigr F, Compan V (2012) Anorexia and drugs of abuse abnormally suppress appetite, the result of a shared molecular signal foul-up. In : Animal model of eating disorders (Avena N, ed). New-York, USA : Springer Book, Humana Press 19 : 319-331.

Compan V, Laurent L, Jean A, Macary C, Bockaert J, Dumuis A (2012) Serotonin signaling in eating disorders. WIREs Membrane Transport and Signaling 1 : 715-729.

Jean A, Conductier G, Manrique C, Bouras C, Berta P, Hen R, Charnay Y, Bockaert J, Compan V (2007) Anorexia induced by activation of serotonin 5-HT4 receptors is mediated by increases in CART in the nucleus accumbens. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104 : 16335-16340.

RECENT PATENTS

Compan V. Pharmaceutical composition for prepraring a medicine for treating and/or preventing a pathology related to an obsessive behaviour or obesity. In : CNRS (ed). PCT/FR2003/003262, vol. EP N°1556489 B1 : Europe, 2011, pp 1-34.

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