The hunger hormone, ghrelin, is produced not only in response to food deprivation, but also released during various types of stress. In recent years, the rise ghrelin levels has come be seen as an essential component stress response. review devoted ghrelin-dependent mechanisms providing reciprocal interaction between hypothalamuspituitaryadrenal cortex axis and dopaminergic reward system. Direc...

Hepatocytes have a great replicative capacity and are capable of repopulating the liver. Previous studies have suggested that the autonomic nervous system regulates liver regeneration and apoptosis. Moreover, the central nervous system modulates them through the autonomic nervous system. The lateral hypothalamus (LH) area and the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) nucleus have been studied for the...

Sleep and metabolism are intertwined physiologically and behaviorally, but the neural systems underlying their coordination are still poorly understood. The hypothalamus is likely to play a major role in the regulation sleep, metabolism, and their interaction. And increasing evidence suggests that hypocretin cells in the lateral hypothalamus may provide particularly important contributions. Her...

In mammals, the major pacemaker controlling circadian rhythmicity is located in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nuclei which are characterized by specific molecular features including the expression of three homologues of the Drosophila clock gene period (per). Until now, no comparable structure has been unambiguously described in the brain of any non-mammalian vertebrate. We cloned the PAS-do...

Small lesions centered in the posterodorsal region of the medial amygdala resulted in excessive weight gains in female rats. Unilateral lesions were nearly as effective as bilateral lesions in the first 48 h after surgery (+21 to +32 g). Assessment of lesion damage was done by both qualitative evaluation and by a quantitative grid-point counting method. The critical sites for weight gain were t...

It has been shown that those factors which affect gastric acid secretion through the ventromedial and lateral nuclei of hypothalamus, can significantly alter centrally-mediated secretion. There is much evidence that glucose is among these factors that through a central mechanism can decrease induced acid secretion. It appears that this effect is mediated through glucose-sensitive neurons within...

Autonomic and limbic information is integrated within the lateral hypothalamus (LH), and excitability of LH neurons is important in the control of feeding and behavioral arousal. Despite the prominent expression of P2X-type ATP receptors throughout the hypothalamus, the role of ATP in LH excitability is not known. Perforated-patch-clamp recordings of synaptically coupled neurons from both embry...

OBJECTIVE Glucose sensing by specialized neurons of the hypothalamus is vital for normal energy balance. In many glucose-activated neurons, glucose metabolism is considered a critical step in glucose sensing, but whether glucose-inhibited neurons follow the same strategy is unclear. Orexin/hypocretin neurons of the lateral hypothalamus are widely projecting glucose-inhibited cells essential for...

Blood glucose, plasma insulin, and glucagon levels were measured in undisturbed and free-moving rats. The insulin and glucagon levels rise in the 1st min after the beginning of food ingestion, whereas the glucose level begins to increase only in the 3rd min if carbohydrate-rich food is eaten. This early rise in insulin and glucagon level is also observed under conditions in which carbohydrate-f...

The organization of the emotion-related somatic motor behavior, including jaw movements, is governed not only by the cortical limbic system but also by the subcortical limbic system including the amygdala and hypothalamus. GABAergic neurons in the central amygdaloid nucleus (CeA) and glutamatergic neurons in the posterior lateral hypothalamus (PLH) exert inhibitory and excitatory influences, re...