Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » Houston, Texas » Children's Nutrition Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #340621
Title: Brain nuclear receptors and body weight regulation

Author
item XU, YONG - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)
item O'MALLEY, BERT - Baylor College Of Medicine
item ELMQUIST, JOEL - University Of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Submitted to: Journal of Clinical Investigation
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/15/2016
Publication Date: 4/3/2017
Citation: Xu, Y., O'Malley, B.W., Elmquist, J.K. 2017. Brain nuclear receptors and body weight regulation. Journal of Clinical Investigation. 127(4):1172-1180.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Neural pathways, especially those in the hypothalamus, integrate multiple nutritional, hormonal, and neural signals, resulting in the coordinated control of body weight balance and glucose homeostasis. Nuclear receptors (NRs) sense changing levels of nutrients and hormones, and therefore play essential roles in the regulation of energy homeostasis. Understanding the role and the underlying mechanisms of NRs in the context of energy balance control may facilitate the identification of novel targets to treat obesity. Notably, NRs are abundantly expressed in the brain, and emerging evidence indicates that a number of these brain NRs regulate multiple aspects of energy balance, including feeding, energy expenditure and physical activity. In this Review we summarize some of the recent literature regarding effects of brain NRs on body weight regulation and discuss mechanisms underlying these effects.