Chen Yiming, Knight Zachary A
Department of Physiology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Bioessays. 2016 Apr;38(4):316-24. doi: 10.1002/bies.201500167. Epub 2016 Feb 22.
AgRP and POMC neurons are two key cell types that regulate feeding in response to hormones and nutrients. Recently, it was discovered that these neurons are also rapidly modulated by the mere sight and smell of food. This rapid sensory regulation "resets" the activity of AgRP and POMC neurons before a single bite of food has been consumed. This surprising and counterintuitive discovery challenges longstanding assumptions about the function and regulation of these cells. Here we review these recent findings and discuss their implications for our understanding of feeding behavior. We propose several alternative hypotheses for how these new observations might be integrated into a revised model of the feeding circuit, and also highlight some of the key questions that remain to be answered.
刺鼠相关蛋白（AgRP）神经元和促黑素细胞激素（POMC）神经元是两种关键的细胞类型，它们会响应激素和营养物质来调节进食。最近，人们发现这些神经元也会仅仅因食物的视觉和嗅觉而迅速受到调节。这种快速的感觉调节在还未吃下一口食物之前就“重置”了AgRP和POMC神经元的活动。这一惊人且有违直觉的发现挑战了关于这些细胞功能和调节的长期假设。在此，我们回顾这些最新发现，并讨论它们对于我们理解进食行为的意义。我们针对如何将这些新观察结果整合到一个经过修订的进食回路模型中提出了几种替代假设，同时也突出了一些有待解答的关键问题。
