Grant: Operating Grant

Obesity is on the rise at an alarming rate particularly in the developed world and so are obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Yet efforts to reverse this trend through promotion of lifestyle changes or via medical intervention had only limited success so far. Towards developing effective ways to intervene with the obesity pandemic, we want to investigate how the generation of new cells in the adult brain influences body weight. We have previously shown that treatment with a particular anti-obesity drug, ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), initiates large-scale birthing of new cells in the hypothalamus, a brain area that plays a key role in feeding control. Our research further indicates that these newly born cells are crucial for the weight-lowering effect of the drug. However we do not yet understand how these cells are able to influence body weight. Towards this end, we plan to comprehensively characterize adult-born hypothalamic cells with regard to their function and the ways they mesh into the brain's neuronal network. Moreover we want to know if the cells that are produced by the hypothalamus on its own, i.e., in the absence of CNTF, are required for weight maintenance as well. Because the proposed research approaches body weight regulation from a novel angle, the investigations may open up avenues to more effective obesity treatments.