Richard Simerly
Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics (MPB)
Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research (VCAR)
Vanderbilt Brain Institute (VBI)
Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center (DRTC)
We study how environmental factors, such as nutrition and hormones, impact the development of neural circuits that control behavior and metabolism, in order to better understand how early events in an individual’s life influence behavior and metabolic physiology. We discovered that the fat-derived hormone leptin is a major developmental signal that participates in metabolic programming of the hypothalamus. Using genetically targeted fluorescent labels, and both in vitro and in vivo conditional regulation of gene expression, we are determining if manipulations of genes known to participate in brain development also influence development of leptin-sensitive pathways that mediate hypothalamic responses to changes in energy balance. Utilization of light sheet microscopy to visualize large tissue volumes, and in vivo calcium imaging to record network activity, we are interrogating the functional significance of metabolically programmed changes in neural architecture, with direct implications for the developmental origins of obesity and diabetes.
We study how environmental factors, such as nutrition and hormones, impact the development of neural circuits that control behavior and metabolism, in order to better understand how early events in an individual’s life influence behavior and metabolic physiology. We discovered that the fat-derived hormone leptin is a major developmental signal that participates in metabolic programming of the hypothalamus. Using genetically targeted fluorescent labels, and both in vitro and in vivo conditional regulation of gene expression, we are determining if manipulations of genes known to participate in brain development also influence development of leptin-sensitive pathways that mediate hypothalamic responses to changes in energy balance. Utilization of light sheet microscopy to visualize large tissue volumes, and in vivo calcium imaging to record network activity, we are interrogating the functional significance of metabolically programmed changes in neural architecture, with direct implications for the developmental origins of obesity and diabetes.
Keywords: developmental neurobiology , neural circuits , obesity , microscopy , limbic region , hypothalamus
Research Area: Diabetes, Obesity, Metabolism , Imaging , Developmental Neuroscience , Synaptic Function and Neuroendocrinology