Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

There has been increasing interest in neural pathways responsible for infertility in recent years. In part, this may be due to the rising prevalence of metabolic related disorders that are known to be associated with infertility, including diabetes, obesity, and anorexia. It has been established that food availability and energy expenditure modulate reproductive ability, however the mechanisms which underlie this phenomenon have yet to be elucidated. In most mammals, including humans, lactation is accompanied by a period of infertility called lactational diestrus in rats. Here we exploit lactation as a naturally occurring change in both energy expenditure and fertility in order to gain insight into the mechanisms through which these two systems interact. Recently, building evidence suggests that the Neuropeptide Y (NPY) neurotransmitter system could be involved in the critical link between energy balance and reproduction. These studies will further examine the role of NPY and its specific receptors in modulating fertility in lactating rats. Ultimately, information obtained from these studies may be generalized to disorders in which decreased energy availability suppresses reproduction.