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

这项研究将提供关于激素如何控制饥饿感的新信息。关于吃多少的决定受到之前吃过的食物量和参与其他活动的需要的影响。因此，进食的动机将被仔细地测量在食物有限或食物无限的实验室啮齿动物中，这些啮齿动物将被提供行为选择，包括与其他物种成员互动的能力。实验旨在确定促性腺激素抑制激素（GnIH）是否会增加对食物的食欲，抑制生殖系统，或两者兼而有之，并详细说明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，并且将创建GnIH细胞在饥饿水平增加和减少时发生的激活图。阻断GnIH与其受体结合的药物将用于确定GnIH对食物限制引起的饥饿和生殖系统变化是否必要。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。该项目将为女性肥胖和饮食失调的高发提供重要见解，并探索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影响。这笔资金将用于与kriegsfried实验室建立合作关系，对研究生和本科生进行团队培训，并参与K-12的外展活动。该奖项将为PI作为NSF ADVANCE主席参加STEM女性研讨会和“写作训练营”提供支持。除了使用传统的出版渠道，两位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研究成果。

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.