Regulation of Appetite and Obesity

The paper examines age-related differences in brain responses to glucose intake using resting state fMRI, finding frequency-dependent changes in BOLD signal amplitude in specific brain regions.

This study shows that astrocytes in the brainstem dorsal vagal complex regulate food intake by inhibiting appetite through a circuit without causing aversion.

This study shows that locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) neurons modulate feeding by integrating external and internal cues, with their activity changing during food approach and consumption.

This study finds that nucleus accumbens volume is positively related to BMI in younger individuals but negatively related in older adults, using meta-analysis and UK Biobank data.

This study identifies a bidirectional interaction between hypothalamic nuclei in larval zebrafish that regulates hunger and satiety through opposing activity patterns.

This study maps the distribution of MCHR1 in the murine CNS, showing its presence in neuronal primary cilia across multiple brain regions and its association with various neurochemical markers.

The paper profiles transcriptomes of developing POMC and NPY/AgRP neurons to identify Prdm12 as a key regulator of energy balance through its role in POMC neuron specification.

This study shows higher BMI correlates with altered hypothalamic microstructure in humans, independent of age, sex, and comorbidities.

This study identifies ROCK1 as a mediator of melanocortin's anorexigenic effect through a novel signaling pathway involving G12 and AMPK suppression.

This study shows that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is essential for making decisions about hunger and thirst in mice, particularly when need states are variable, and that outcome evaluation is critical for accurate decision-making.

The paper maps genomic and epigenomic features of leptin-responsive hypothalamic neurons and identifies regulatory elements overlapping obesity-associated SNPs.

This study investigates tanycytic leptin receptor expression and function in mice, finding no detectable LepR in tanycytes and no effect of their deletion on hypothalamic leptin signaling.

The paper identifies MC4R mutations in African American and Hispanic children with severe early onset obesity, finding a 2.6% prevalence and three novel variants.

This study shows ghrelin increases reward prediction error activity and functional connectivity during food odor conditioning in humans, enhancing cue incentive salience and potentially contributing to obesity risk.

This study shows that NKX2.1 is essential for Pomc expression in hypothalamic neurons and body weight regulation through its role in enhancer activity.

The paper identifies β-MSH and desacetyl-MSH as major POMC-derived peptides in human hypothalamic neurons, suggesting their underappreciated role in obesity.

The paper shows miR-7 and miR-17-92 in POMC neurons regulate sex-specific diet-induced obesity through sex-differential gene expression.

This paper develops a context-induced feeding task to study non-homeostatic feeding in mice and identifies brain regions involved in appetitive conditioning.

This study identifies novel Ca2+ signaling mechanisms by which hypothalamic neurons in mice and humans rapidly respond to L-leucine, showing both activation and inhibition of specific neuron types.

This paper develops a predictive model for rats' calorie intake based on diet energy density and body weight, showing high accuracy in predicting intake patterns.

The paper reviews theories of homeostatic control and evaluates their application to energy homeostasis, proposing a circuit that integrates physiological and behavioral regulation.

The paper examines brain activity and hormone levels during calorie restriction, finding that prefrontal cortex activation correlates with weight loss, while hormonal changes do not significantly counteract it.

This study shows that protein-restricted rats develop a preference for protein-containing food and show increased palatability of protein compared to carbohydrate.

This study finds that genetic obesity, not diet-induced obesity, reduces orexin/hypocretin immunoreactivity in the lateral hypothalamus of mice.

The paper suggests that vestibular nerve stimulation (VeNS) may reduce total body fat in humans and presents pilot data supporting this hypothesis.

This study identifies CeA Htr2a neurons as regulators of food consumption through positive valence mechanisms using in vivo activity manipulations and electrophysiology.

This study shows mTORC1 in AGRP neurons integrates food-related cues to control iBAT thermogenesis in mice, linking energy availability to adaptive energy expenditure.

The paper uses single-cell RNA sequencing to reveal heterogeneity in murine hypothalamic POMC neurons, identifying distinct subpopulations with different gene expression profiles and receptor expression.