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

这项研究将提供荷尔蒙如何具体控制饥饿的新信息。关于进食量的决定受到以前进食量和参加其他活动的需要的影响。因此，无论是食物受限还是食物不受限的实验室啮齿动物，都将被仔细衡量进食动机，这些啮齿动物将被提供行为选择，包括与其物种的其他成员互动的能力。实验旨在确定促性腺激素抑制激素(GnIH)是增加食物的食欲，还是抑制生殖系统，或者两者兼而有之，并明确GnIH如何协调行为优先级。分泌GnIH的单个脑细胞的激活将使用免疫组织化学来测量，并将创建一张地图，显示饥饿水平增加和减少时发生的GnIH细胞的激活。阻断GnIH与其受体结合的药物将被用来确定GnIH是否对食物限制引起的饥饿和生殖系统的变化是必要的。其他实验将检验卵巢分泌的激素是否控制GnIH细胞的神经活动。该项目将对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的副作用之间的联系。这项研究将对公众理解食欲及其与生殖、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。这笔资金将用于与克里格斯费尔德实验室建立合作，对研究生和本科生进行团队培训，并参与K-12外联活动。该奖项将支持国际和平协会作为国家科学基金会的先期主席，参加STEM妇女研讨会和“写作新兵训练营”。除了使用传统的出版平台，两家PI还将通过他们的网页和行为内分泌学博客来传播他们的工作。

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 explore links to the side effects of contraceptive and hormone replacement therapy. This research will have broad impact on the public's understanding of appetite 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.