AgRP neurons trigger long-term potentiation and facilitate food seeking
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-1-2021
Abstract
Sufficient feeding is essential for animals’ survival, which requires a cognitive capability to facilitate food seeking, but the neurobiological processes regulating food seeking are not fully understood. Here we show that stimulation of agouti-related peptide-expressing (AgRP) neurons triggers a long-term depression (LTD) of spontaneous excitatory post-synaptic current (sEPSC) in adjacent pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons and in most of their distant synaptic targets, including neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT). The AgRP-induced sEPCS LTD can be enhanced by fasting but blunted by satiety signals, e.g. leptin and insulin. Mice subjected to food-seeking tasks develop similar neural plasticity in AgRP-innervated PVT neurons. Further, ablation of the majority of AgRP neurons, or only a subset of AgRP neurons that project to the PVT, impairs animals’ ability to associate spatial and contextual cues with food availability during food seeking. A similar impairment can be also induced by optogenetic inhibition of the AgRP→PVT projections. Together, these results indicate that the AgRP→PVT circuit is necessary for food seeking.
Recommended Citation
Wang, C., Zhou, W., He, Y., Yang, T., Xu, P., Yang, Y., Cai, X., Wang, J., Liu, H., Yu, M., Liang, C., Yang, T., Liu, H., Fukuda, M., Tong, Q., Wu, Q., Sun, Z., He, Y., & Xu, Y. (2021). AgRP neurons trigger long-term potentiation and facilitate food seeking. Retrieved from https://repository.lsu.edu/pbrc_basic_science_pubs/47