Metabolic and Endocrine Control of Behavior

我们的视觉、听觉、嗅觉和触觉能力都是由感官系统调节的，在感官系统中，刺激和感受器都得到了很好的理解。例如，视觉是由光线进入眼睛并撞击到视网膜上的感受器而产生的。虽然众所周知，环境事件，如温度和食物可获得性的变化，对哺乳动物的行为有重大影响，但对调节这些影响大脑的刺激和受体知之甚少。施奈德博士将调查这一重要问题。她发现，生殖、母体和体温调节行为受控于代谢能量的可获得性，或来自糖和脂肪的化学燃料。这种代谢燃料的供应受到饮食、身体脂肪储存以及保暖、寻找食物和执行其他生命必需过程所需的能量的影响。施奈德博士现在将确定代谢能量可获得性的感官探测器的性质和位置。她将注入抑制特定代谢途径的药物，以检查对控制上述三种特定调控行为的神经内分泌系统的影响。她的研究结果将为能量供需变化产生的新陈代谢、神经和激素信号之间的关系提供一个广泛而完整的视角。此外，这些结果将具有重要的临床意义，因为它们应该揭示限制能量摄入的妇女中的不孕现象。不孕症在专业运动员、芭蕾舞演员和患有厌食症等进食障碍的女性中很常见。在节食和/或参加娱乐运动的正常女性中也会发生这种情况。施奈德博士的工作将有助于阐明这些燃料供应的变化如何影响神经系统来调节行为和生理反应。

Our abilities to see, hear, smell and touch are all mediated by sensory systems in which the stimuli and the receptors are well understood. For example, vision results from light entering the eye and impinging on receptors located in the retina. While it is known that environmental events, such as changes in temperature and food availability, have major effects upon the behavior of mammals, little is known about the stimuli and receptors that mediate these influences on the brain. Dr. Schneider will investigate this important problem. She has found that reproductive, maternal, and temperature regulatory behaviors are controlled by the availability of metabolic energy, or the chemical fuels that derive from sugars and fats. This supply of metabolic fuels is influenced by diet, body fat stores, and the energy required to keep warm, find food and carry out other processes necessary for life. Dr. Schneider will now identify the nature and location of sensory detectors of metabolic energy availability. She will infuse drugs that inhibit specific metabolic pathways to examine effects on neuroendocrine systems controlling each of the three specific regulatory behaviors mentioned above. Her results will provide a broad and integrated view of the relation between metabolic, neural and hormonal signals generated by changes in energy supply and demand. Moreover, these results will have important clinical relevance since they should shed light on phenomena such as infertility in women who limit their energy intake. Infertility is common in professional athletes, ballet dancers and women with eating disorders such as anorexia nervous. It also occurs in normal women who diet and/or participate in recreational sports. Dr. Schneider's work will help elucidate how these changes in fuel availability influence the nervous system to regulate behavioral and physiological responses.