Endocrine Abstracts

The brain regulates food intake by processing sensory cues and peripheral physiological signals. Recently, we have gained an increased understanding of the neural networks that regulate food intake. However, understanding how nutrients and post-ingestive signals regulate the activity of hunger-sensitive neurons remains an important question. To understand the neural control of food intake, we monitor the activity of hunger-sensitive neural populations in the awake behaving ani...

Pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons in the arcuate nucleus (ARC) of the hypothalamus are critical regulators of appetite, energy expenditure and glucose metabolism. POMC neurons are able to sense circulating hormones and nutrients informing about the energy status of the organism. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying nutrient-sensing in POMC neurons remain incompletely understood. Mitochondria are key organelles implicated in cellular nutrient/energy management and are...

It is clear that the cause of obesity is a result of eating more than you burn. What is more complex to answer is why some people eat more than others? Over the past 20 years, insights from human and mouse genetics have illuminated multiple pathways within the brain that play a key role in the control of food intake. We now know that the brain leptin-melanocortin pathway is central to mammalian food intake control, with genetic disruption resulting in extreme obesity. These, h...