The Lateral Hypothalamic and BNST GABAergic Projections to the Anterior Ventrolateral Periaqueductal Gray Regulate Feeding

• DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.06.051
• Publication Date: 2019-07-16T14:34:22Z
• Authors: Sijia Hao; Hongbin Yang; Xiaomeng Wang; Yang He; Haifeng Xu; Xiaotong Wu; Libiao Pan; Yijun Liu; Huifang Lou; Han Xu; Huan Ma; Wang Xi; Yudong Zhou; Shumin Duan; Hao Wang
• Keywords: Periaqueductal gray; Lateral hypothalamus; Overeating; Forebrain

Overeating is a serious issue in modern society, causing many health problems, including obesity. Although the hypothalamus has been previously identified as key brain structure that regulates body weight homeostasis, downstream pathways and non-canonical neural circuitry involved feeding behavior remain largely uncharacterized. Here, we discover suppressing activity of GABAergic cells anterior ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vlPAG), whether directly or through long-projection inputs from either bed nucleus stria terminalis (BNST) lateral (LH), sufficient to promptly induce well-fed mice. In contrast, optogenetic activation these interrupts food intake starved Long-term chemogenetic manipulation vlPAG cell elicits corresponding change mouse weight. Our studies reveal distinct midbrain highlight an important role behavior.