A new role for glucose-sensing neurons under torpor and hibernation

Q-神经元诱导的低温和低代谢（QIH）已被报道诱导低温和低代谢。我们发现，一旦动物进入QIH，葡萄糖稳态迅速重置，并且新的稳态不受禁食的干扰，禁食是对葡萄糖代谢的强烈刺激。QIH动物显示出2型糖尿病的许多指标，表明这些动物具有葡萄糖代谢低下，处于“糖尿病样”状态。我们还发现，当体温升高时，QIH动物显示正常的葡萄糖代谢。基础血糖、血浆胰岛素和全身葡萄糖代谢的差异完全消除。与此一致，QIH动物个体组织的葡萄糖代谢在加热后也明显增加。QIH小鼠的胰岛素抵抗表明，QIH可能干扰了葡萄糖敏感神经元或其下游神经元。我们已经评估了几个下丘脑核团的葡萄糖敏感性，发现在QIH期间葡萄糖敏感性发生了改变。 与上述结果一致，当QIH动物升温时，下丘脑的葡萄糖敏感性至少部分恢复。这些结果在2023年的日本生理学会会议上发表。

The Q-neuron-induced hypothermia and hypometabolism (QIH) has been reported to induce hypothermia and hypometabolism. We found that the glucose homeostasis is reset quickly once the animals entered QIH, and the new homeostasis was not disturbed by fasting, a strong stimulus on glucose metabolism. The QIH animals showed many indicators of type 2 diabetes, suggesting these animals had glucose hypometabolism and were under a “diabetes-like” state. We also found that the QIH animals shows normal glucose metabolism when the body temperature was heating up. The differences of basal blood glucose, plasma insulin, and systemic glucose metabolism are fully abolished. In line with these, glucose metabolism from individual tissues of QIH animals were also clearly increase after heating up. The insulin resistance of QIH mice suggests that glucose-sensing neuron or its downstream neurons may be disturbed by QIH. We have evaluated the glucose-sensing on several hypothalamic nuclei and found the glucose-sensing was altered during QIH. In line with the above results, the glucose sensitivity of hypothalamus was at least partially recovered when the QIH animals were heating up. These results were presented at a meeting of the Japanese Physiological Society in 2023.