Energy Balance and Reproductive Success

这项研究将揭示支配与食物胃口和生殖活动动机相关的行为的神经(大脑)机制。许多化学物质，如脂肪细胞荷尔蒙瘦素，已被确定为潜在的饱腹感信号，尽管该实验室的研究表明，瘦素是一种强大的生殖活动刺激剂。当动物在觅食和交配伙伴之间做出非强制选择时，瘦素治疗会增加对交配伙伴的兴趣，剂量不会减少食物摄入量。这些结果是通过自然选择从进化的角度来解释的，也就是说，如果特征增加了繁殖成功，那么特征就会在种群中世代保持。能量消耗(食物摄入量)对于与生殖相关的耗费能量的过程至关重要，因此增加食物摄入量的大脑过程与生殖成功直接相关。同样，当抑制饥饿和吞食行为的大脑结构导致个体为了寻找和追求潜在配偶而停止觅食、囤积和进食时，这些结构可能是最具适应性的。这个项目将被用来研究食物剥夺和重新进食后瘦素、胰岛素和Ghrelin的血液波动，同时还将检测大脑中神经肽Y、促肾上腺皮质激素释放激素、Kispeptin和促性腺激素抑制激素的水平，这些典型的化学信使是调节食物剥夺对生殖和饮食影响的典型化学信使。预计那些在行为改变之前没有改变的多肽将被排除为候选，这反过来将允许对那些及时改变的多肽进行重点研究，以解释行为的改变。这些结果将有助于我们理解全球范围内的肥胖问题，并对我们的行为神经科学项目中的研究生和本科生进行培训。

This research will uncover the neural (brain) mechanisms that govern behaviors related to food appetite and the motivation to engage in reproductive activities. A wide variety of chemical substances, such as the fat cell hormone leptin, have been identified as potential satiety signals, despite research from this laboratory showing that leptin is a potent stimulators of reproductive activity. When animals have an unforced choice between foraging for food and mating partners, leptin treatment increases interest in mating partners at doses that fail to decrease food intake. These results are interpreted in light of evolution by natural selection, that is, the idea that traits are maintained in populations over generations if they increase reproductive success. Energy consumption (food intake) is critical for the energetically expensive processes related to reproduction, and so brain processes that increase food intake are directly linked to reproductive success. Similarly, the brain structures that inhibit hunger and ingestive behavior might be most adaptive when these structures cause individuals to stop foraging, hoarding and eating in order to find and court potential mates. This project will be used to study blood fluctuations after food deprivation and re-feeding in leptin, insulin and ghrelin while also examing brain levels of neuropeptide Y, corticotropin releasing hormone, kisspeptin, and gonadotropin inhibiting hormone, the typical chemical messengers that are candidates for mediating the effects of food deprivation on reproduction and eating. It is expected that those peptides that fail to change prior to the changes in behavior will be eliminated as candidates, and this, in turn, will allow focused research on those peptides that change in time to account for changes in behavior. These results will facilitate our understanding of worldwide obesity and the training of both graduate and undergraduate students in our behavioral neuroscience programs.