Endocrine Abstracts

Obesity is a primary healthcare challenge of the 21st century. Medications increasing the bioavailability of the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-hydroxytriptamine; 5-HT) have historically been used for obesity treatment. 5-HT primarily influences appetite via action at the 5-HT2C receptor (5-HT2CR); the clinical significance of which has recently been realized with the launch of the 5-HT2CR agonist lorcaserin for obesity treatment in the USA. Efforts to delineate the underpinnin...

As part of the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre TR-SFB134 we study central insulin effects on hedonic food processing across the life-span. So far, 48 younger participants across a wide weight-range (BMI: 18–38) were investigated with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a hedonic food processing task after receiving intranasal insulin (160UI) or placebo in a cross-over design after an overnight fast. Imaging results during the placebo session re...

Emerging evidence indicates that the hypothalamus is a key regulator of the adaptation of the central nervous system (CNS) to the changing environment in support of survival, with subsets of hypothalamic neurons acting as upstream regulators of brain regions classically considered as master determinants of CNS function, such as the cortex and hippocampus. The regulatory role of the hypothalamus in cortical and hippocampal functions is mediated via classical neuronal pathways a...