Mammals that hibernate (hibernators) exhibit a circannual rhythm of food intake and body mass. In the laboratory during the winter hibernation period, many hibernators enter a series of multi-day torpor bouts, dropping their body temperature to near ambient, and cease to feed even if food is present in their cage. The mechanism(s) that regulates food intake in hibernators is unclear. Recently, ...

Obesity in young people is now realised as a worldwide crisis of epidemic proportion. The aetiology of this disease suggests a disruption in regulation of energy at the population level, leading to a positive energy balance and excess adiposity. The relative contribution of food intake and physical inactivity remains to be elucidated. Treatment interventions have aimed to create a deficit in en...

Psychological influences on the childhood diet are addressed. The focus is on factors that influence the formation of children’s food preferences. Evidence for links among food preferences, dietary intake and children’s adiposity is presented, with an emphasis on dietary fat. Few food and flavor preferences are innate; most are learned via experience with food and eating and involve associative...

Melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) was first discovered in the pituitary gland of the chum salmon for its role in the regulation of skin pallor. Currently, MCH is known to be present in the brains of organisms ranging from fish to mammals. MCH has been suggested to be conserved principally as a central neuromodulator or neurotransmitter in the brain. Indeed, MCH is considered to regulate food ...

Knowledge of the cannabinoid system and its components has expanded greatly over the past decade. There is increasing evidence for its role in the regulation of food intake and appetite. Cannabinoid system activity in the hypothalamus is thought to contribute to the homeostatic regulation of energy balance, under the control of the hormone leptin. A second component of cannabinoid-mediated food...

Apolipoprotein AIV (apo AIV) is a satiety protein secreted by the small intestine. We demonstrate for the first time that apo AIV protein and apo AIV mRNA are present in rat hypothalamus, a site intimately involved in the integration of signals for regulation of food intake and energy metabolism. We further characterized the regulation of hypothalamic apo AIV mRNA levels. Food-deprived animals ...

Introduction A great deal of evidence indicates that the Limbic areas such as amygdala plays an important role in the control of food and water intake [1].Glutamatergic mechanisms are present in all brain regions regulating feeding, including the nucleus accumbens, hypothalamus, and amygdala. A limbic forebrain region strongly implicated in the motivational mechanisms for feeding [2]. For years...

Several lines of evidence suggest that brain histamine may be involved in the central control of food intake. The effect of histamine on feeding is mediated through three kinds of receptors (H1, H2, and H3). The present study was designed to investigate the effect of intracerebroventricular injection of histamine, promethazine (H1 antagonist) and ranitidine (H2 antagonist) on food intake of fre...

During the conduct of certain studies upon the regulation of energy exchange, two hypotheses have been adopted for testing by experiment. The first of these, viz., that the processes of energy exchange are integrated and regulated by the hypothalamus, has been presented elsewhere, together with data with which it appears to be in agreement.4' 5 The second hypothesis is related to the first, and...

CCK-A receptors and neurons of the nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) are involved in the regulation of food intake, and in rats, there is evidence for involvement of an intestinal vagal afferent pathway. Studies investigating the role of CCK-A receptors in activation of NTS neurons using highly selective CCK-A receptor agonists and antagonists have yielded conflicting data. In the present stu...