Neuron Signaling in Metabolic Regulation

This book focuses on neuron signaling in the regulation of metabolism and body weight, and especially on methods used in these studies. Obesity and related metabolic syndromes have reached epidemic status, but still are no effective strategies for prevention and treatment. Body weight homeostasis is maintained by balanced food intake and energy expenditure, both of which are under the control of brain neurons. In the recent years, significant progress has been made in identifying specific neurons, neural pathways, and non-neuron cells in feeding regulation, as well as in delineating autonomic nervous systems targeting peripheral metabolic tissues in the regulation of energy expenditure and metabolism. This book reviews recent progress on important neuron signaling for body weight and metabolic regulation and the state-of-the-art methods that has been applied in this field, ranging from animal models with neuron-specific manipulations, pharmacology, optogenetics, in vivo Ca2+ imaging, and viral tracing. Readers will be exposed to latest research frontiers on neuron regulation of metabolism.