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Credit: Elsevier, 2021
Philadelphia, April 6, 2021 - Since the discovery of leptin in the 1990s, researchers have wondered, how does leptin, a hormone made by body fat, suppress appetite? Despite tremendous gains in the intervening three decades, many questions still remain. Now, a new study in mice describes novel neurocircuitry between midbrain structures that control feeding behaviors that are under modulatory control by leptin. The study appears in
John Krystal, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, said of the findings, Omrani and colleagues shed light on how, in non-obese animals, leptin puts the brakes on overeating.
Leptin acts as a critical link between the body and the brain, providing information about metabolic state and exerting control over energy balance. The importance of leptin is illustrated by the finding that animals deficient for leptin rapidly become obese without its regulatory stop on feeding behavior.