Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0020505 (hyperphagia)
6,116 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are involved in energy expenditure, regulation of inflammatory processes, and cellular protection in peripheral tissues. Among the different types of PPARs, PPARbeta is the only one to be widely expressed in cortical neurons. Using PPARbeta knockout (KO) mice, we report here a detailed investigation of the role of PPARbeta in cerebral ischemic damage, associated inflammatory and antioxidant processes as well as food intake regulation after middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). The PPARbeta KO mice had a two-fold increase in infarct size compared with wild-type (WT) mice. Brain oxidative stress was dramatically enhanced in these KO mice, as documented by an increased content of malondialdehyde, decreased levels of glutathione and manganese superoxide dismutase, and no induction of uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) mRNA. Unlike WT mice, PPARbeta KO mice showed a marked increase of prooxidant interferon-gamma but no induction of nerve growth factor and tumor necrosis factor alpha after MCAO. In WT mice, MCAO resulted in inflammation-specific transient hyperphagia from day 3 to day 5 after ischemia, which was associated with an increase in neuropeptide Y (NPY) mRNA. This hyperphagic phase and NPY mRNA induction were not observed in PPARbeta KO mice. Furthermore, our study also suggests for the first time that UCP2 is involved in MCAO food intake response. These data indicate that PPARbeta plays an important role in integrating and regulating central inflammation, antioxidant mechanisms, and food intake after MCAO, and suggest that the use of PPARbeta agonists may be of interest for the prevention of central ischemic damage.
J Cereb Blood Flow Metab 2006 Mar
PMID:Increased infarct size and lack of hyperphagic response after focal cerebral ischemia in peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor beta-deficient mice. 1609 19

The palatability and pleasantness of the sensory properties of foods drive food selection and intake and may contribute to overeating and obesity. Oral fat texture can make food palatable and pleasant. To analyze its neural basis, we correlated humans' subjective reports of the pleasantness of the texture and flavor of a high- and low-fat food with a vanilla or strawberry flavor, with neural activations measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Activity in the midorbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex was correlated with the pleasantness of oral fat texture and in nearby locations with the pleasantness of flavor. The pregenual cingulate cortex showed a supralinear response to the combination of high fat and pleasant, sweet flavor, implicating it in the convergence of fat texture and flavor to produce a representation of highly pleasant stimuli. The subjective reports of oral fattiness were correlated with activations in the midorbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum. The lateral hypothalamus and amygdala were more strongly activated by high- versus low-fat stimuli. This discovery of which brain regions track the subjective hedonic experience of fat texture will help to unravel possible differences in the neural responses in obese versus lean people to oral fat, a driver of food intake.
Cereb Cortex 2010 May
PMID:How the brain represents the reward value of fat in the mouth. 1968 48

The RNase Dicer is essential for the maturation of most microRNAs, a molecular system that plays an essential role in fine-tuning gene expression. To gain molecular insight into the role of Dicer and the microRNA system in brain function, we conducted 2 complementary RNA-seq screens in the hippocampus of inducible forebrain-restricted Dicer1 mutants aimed at identifying the microRNAs primarily affected by Dicer loss and their targets, respectively. Functional genomics analyses predicted the main biological processes and phenotypes associated with impaired microRNA maturation, including categories related to microRNA biology, signal transduction, seizures, and synaptic transmission and plasticity. Consistent with these predictions, we found that, soon after recombination, Dicer-deficient mice exhibited an exaggerated seizure response, enhanced induction of immediate early genes in response to different stimuli, stronger and more stable fear memory, hyperphagia, and increased excitability of CA1 pyramidal neurons. In the long term, we also observed slow and progressive excitotoxic neurodegeneration. Overall, our results indicate that interfering with microRNA biogenesis causes an increase in neuronal responsiveness and disrupts homeostatic mechanisms that protect the neuron against overactivation, which may explain both the initial and late phenotypes associated with the loss of Dicer in excitatory neurons.
Cereb Cortex 2016 Apr
PMID:Blocking miRNA Biogenesis in Adult Forebrain Neurons Enhances Seizure Susceptibility, Fear Memory, and Food Intake by Increasing Neuronal Responsiveness. 2559 82

Elevated body mass index (BMI) is associated with increased multi-morbidity and mortality. The investigation of the relationship between BMI and brain organization has the potential to provide new insights relevant to clinical and policy strategies for weight control. Here, we quantified the association between increasing BMI and the functional organization of resting-state brain networks in a sample of 496 healthy individuals that were studied as part of the Human Connectome Project. We demonstrated that higher BMI was associated with changes in the functional connectivity of the default-mode network (DMN), central executive network (CEN), sensorimotor network (SMN), visual network (VN), and their constituent modules. In siblings discordant for obesity, we showed that person-specific factors contributing to obesity are linked to reduced cohesiveness of the sensory networks (SMN and VN). We conclude that higher BMI is associated with widespread alterations in brain networks that balance sensory-driven (SMN, VN) and internally guided (DMN, CEN) states which may augment sensory-driven behavior leading to overeating and subsequent weight gain. Our results provide a neurobiological context for understanding the association between BMI and brain functional organization while accounting for familial and person-specific influences.
Cereb Cortex 2018 03 01
PMID:Elevated Body Mass Index is Associated with Increased Integration and Reduced Cohesion of Sensory-Driven and Internally Guided Resting-State Functional Brain Networks. 2811 42