Borelli@Saints-Pères : Chloé Berland

Chloé Berland presents her work at the Borelli@Saints-Pères seminar.

Chloé Berland

Title: Leptin-independent fat-to-brain signaling protects body weight against overfeeding

Abstract: Eating behavior that is consistent with energy demands requires extensive communication between the brain and periphery. We gathered evidence that adipose tissue plays a role in meal termination through molecular pathways that are independent from leptin signaling, a well-known hormone inhibiting hunger. We show that rapid weight gain induced by overfeeding in rodents triggers a long-lasting satiety signal in animals, while having no impact on neural activity in canonical brain circuits encoding anorexia – namely the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, the parabrachial nucleus, or the nucleus of the solitary tract. We provide a map of whole-brain neural activity during overfeeding-induced-anorexia and during diet-induced obesity, and we identify several novel brain regions involved in satiety/anorectic-states. Intravenous plasma injections from obese animals releasing adipose-tissue derived anorectic factor recapitulates brain activity in the overfed-anorectic state. We highlight, for the first time, possible mechanisms underlying a new adipose-tissue-to brain pathway that defends against rapid body weight gain.