Energy Balance and Reproductive Success

这项研究将揭示神经（大脑）机制，控制与食物食欲和参与生殖活动的动机有关的行为。各种各样的化学物质，如脂肪细胞激素瘦素，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生殖活动的有力刺激物。当动物在觅食和交配伴侣之间有非强制性的选择时，瘦素治疗增加了对交配伴侣的兴趣，但剂量不能减少食物摄入量。这些结果是根据自然选择的进化来解释的，也就是说，如果性状增加了繁殖成功率，它们就会在几代人的种群中保持不变。能量消耗（食物摄入）对于与繁殖相关的能量消耗过程至关重要，因此增加食物摄入的大脑过程与繁殖成功直接相关。同样，当抑制饥饿和摄食行为的大脑结构导致个体停止觅食、囤积和进食以寻找和追求潜在伴侣时，这些结构可能是最具适应性的。该项目将用于研究食物剥夺和重新进食后血液中瘦素、胰岛素和胃促生长素的波动，同时也检查大脑中神经肽Y、促肾上腺皮质激素释放激素、kisspeptin和促性腺激素抑制激素的水平，这些典型的化学信使是介导食物剥夺对生殖和进食影响的候选者。预计那些在行为变化之前没有变化的肽将作为候选物被淘汰，这反过来将允许对那些随时间变化的肽进行集中研究，以解释行为的变化。这些结果将促进我们对全球肥胖的理解，并在我们的行为神经科学项目中培训研究生和本科生。

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.