Endocrine Abstracts

An increasing proportion of people living in our 24/7 culture complain about insomnia symptoms, i.e., they experience problems to fall and/or stay asleep. As demonstrated by epidemiological studies, chronic sleep loss is correlated with weight gain. To investigate whether sleep loss would alter energy metabolism in favour of weight gain, my lab therefore performed a series of sleep loss experiments in metabolically healthy normal-weight subjects. These studies demonstrated tha...

Oxytocin was discovered by Henry Dale in 1906 and synthesized in the early 50’s by Vincent du Vigneaud and coworkers. It is secreted by axonal terminals in the neurohypophysis emanating from the neurosecretory neurons of the supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei of the hypothalamus. This hormone similarly to others is secreted in a pulsatile way and, classically, in relation to labor (uterine contractility), lactation and to the maternal behaviour. After the initial ident...

Kisspeptin and neurokinin B are 2 novel key hypothalamic hormones which are vital in normal reproductive function. Inactivating mutations for the gene or the receptor for either of these peptides will cause a failure of puberty due to hypogonadtotrophic hypogondaism. In this talk I will present evidence to suggest that kisspeptin is important in sexual and emotional processing in humans (1). In addition I will present evidence which suggests that NK3R (the receptor for NKB in ...