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 animal. Our recent work has demonstrated that nutrients, independent of the sensory experience of food, have the ability to change the activity of both hypothalamic and midbrain neurons that influence food intake. Further, vagal gut-brain signaling is necessary to rapidly transmit this information. We have identified satiation hormones that are likely responsible for activating the vagal signaling and have discovered that they work synergistically. Finally, we find coordinated and bidirectional modulation of hypothalamic and midbrain circuits by food rewards. Taken together, these studies begin to unpack how networks of neurons in the brain influence food intake.