Endocrine Abstracts

The ever-growing obesity epidemic puts an enormous burden on our societies. The need for the development of novel therapeutic interventions necessitates the exact understanding of the underlying regulatory principles in energy homeostasis. Over the last 10 years, the hormonal and nutritional factors communicating the energy state of the body to the central nervous system to adapt caloric intake and energy expenditure have rapidly extended our understanding on the mechanisms controlling energy homeostasis. The presentation will focus on insights into the primary neuronal target sites of such signals as well as molecular signaling mechanisms involved mainly obtained through the use of mice with conditional inactivation of signaling components in specific neuronal populations.