Department of Bioregulation and Pharmacological Medicine, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima, Japan.
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
Neuroendocrinology. 2018;107(1):91-104. doi: 10.1159/000489263. Epub 2018 Apr 16.
Oxytocin was discovered in 1906 as a peptide that promotes delivery and milk ejection; however, its additional physiological functions were determined 100 years later. Many recent articles have reported newly discovered effects of oxytocin on social communication, bonding, reward-related behavior, adipose tissue, and muscle and food intake regulation. Because oxytocin neurons project to various regions in the brain that contribute to both feeding reward (hedonic feeding) and the regulation of energy balance (homeostatic feeding), the mechanisms of oxytocin on food intake regulation are complicated and largely unknown. Oxytocin neurons in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) receive neural projections from the arcuate nucleus (ARC), which is an important center for feeding regulation. On the other hand, these neurons in the PVN and supraoptic nucleus project to the ARC. PVN oxytocin neurons also project to the brain stem and the reward-related limbic system. In addition to this, oxytocin induces lipolysis and decreases fat mass. However, these effects in feeding and adipose tissue are known to be dependent on body weight (BW). Oxytocin treatment is more effective in food intake regulation and fat mass decline for individuals with leptin resistance and higher BW, but is known to be less effective in individuals with normal BW. In this review, we present in detail the recent findings on the physiological role of oxytocin in feeding regulation and the anorexigenic neural pathway of oxytocin neurons, as well as the advantage of oxytocin usage for anti-obesity treatment.
催产素于 1906 年被发现，是一种促进分娩和乳汁分泌的肽；然而，其额外的生理功能是在 100 年后才确定的。最近有许多文章报道了催产素在社会交流、结合、与奖励相关的行为、脂肪组织以及肌肉和食物摄入调节方面的新发现的作用。由于催产素神经元投射到大脑的各个区域，这些区域既有助于进食奖励（享乐性进食），又有助于调节能量平衡（稳态性进食），因此催产素对食物摄入调节的机制很复杂，且大部分仍未知。室旁核（PVN）中的催产素神经元接收来自弓状核（ARC）的神经投射，ARC 是进食调节的重要中心。另一方面，这些 PVN 和视上核中的神经元投射到 ARC。PVN 中的催产素神经元还投射到脑干和与奖励相关的边缘系统。除此之外，催产素还诱导脂肪分解并减少脂肪量。然而，这些在进食和脂肪组织中的作用已知依赖于体重（BW）。对于存在瘦素抵抗和较高 BW 的个体，催产素治疗在调节食物摄入和减少脂肪量方面更有效，但对于 BW 正常的个体，效果则知之甚少。在这篇综述中，我们详细介绍了最近关于催产素在进食调节中的生理作用以及催产素神经元的厌食性神经通路的发现，以及催产素在抗肥胖治疗中的应用优势。
