Collaborative Proposal: Steroid-neuropeptide interactions that optimize reproductive success when energy availability fluctuates

这项研究将提供有关激素如何专门控制饥饿的新信息。关于吃多少的决定受到先前吃的食物量和参与其他活动的需要的影响。因此，将在食物有限或食物不受限制的实验室啮齿动物中仔细测量进食动机，这些啮齿动物将提供行为选择，包括与其物种的其他成员互动的能力。实验的目的是确定促性腺激素抑制激素（GnIH）是否增加食欲的食物，抑制生殖系统，或两者兼而有之，并指定GnIH如何编排行为的优先级。将使用免疫组织化学法测量分泌GnIH的单个脑细胞的激活，并绘制饥饿水平增加和减少时发生的GnIH细胞激活图。阻断GnIH与其受体结合的药物将用于确定GnIH是否是食物限制引起的饥饿和生殖系统变化所必需的。其他实验将检查卵巢分泌的激素是否控制GnIH细胞的神经活动。该项目将为女性肥胖和饮食失调的高发病率提供重要的见解，并探索与避孕和激素替代疗法副作用的联系。这项研究将对公众理解对fo的需求及其与生殖、生育、运动、健康、生活方式、药物和处方激素的相互作用产生广泛的影响。这笔资金将用于与Kriegsfled实验室建立合作，对研究生和本科生进行团队培训，并参与K-12外展活动。该奖项将为PI作为NSF ADVANCE主席参与STEM妇女研讨会和“写作靴子营”提供支持。除了使用传统的出版场所外，PI还将通过他们的网页和行为内分泌学博客传播他们的工作。

This research will provide new information about how hormones specifically control hunger. Decisions about how much to eat are affected by the amount of food previously eaten and the need to engage in other activities. Thus, motivation to eat will be carefully measured in either food-limited or food-unlimited laboratory rodents that will be provided with behavioral options, including the ability to interact with other members of their species. Experiments are designed to determine whether gonadotropin-inhibiting hormone (GnIH) increases the appetite for food, inhibits the reproductive system, or both, and to specify how GnIH orchestrates behavioral priorities. The activation of individual brain cells that secrete GnIH will be measured using immunohistochemistry and a map will be created of the GnIH-cell activation that occurs at the time hunger levels increase and decrease. Drugs that block GnIH binding to its receptors will be used to determine whether GnIH is necessary for food-restriction-induced changes in hunger and the reproductive system. Other experiments will examine whether hormones secreted by the ovary control neural activity in GnIH cells. This project will offer important insights into the high incidence of obesity and eating disorders in women and the explore links to the side effects of contraceptive and hormone replacement therapy. This research will have broad impact on the public's understanding of the appetite for fo, and its interaction with reproduction, fertility, exercise, health, lifestyle, drugs, and prescription hormones. The funding will be used to establish a collaboration with the Kriegsfled laboratory, to team-train graduate and undergraduate students, and to engage in K-12 outreach activities. The award will provide support for the PI's participation, as an NSF ADVANCE chair, in STEM women's seminars and a "writing boot camp". In addition to using traditional publication venues, both PI's will disseminate their work via their webpages and behavioral endocrinology blogs.