Overview

Our laboratory aims to decipher the anatomical and functional interactions between glia and neurons for the regulation of energy balance combining neuroanatomical, molecular and physiological approaches.

Research summary

An adequate balance between energy supply and energy expenditure is essential to ensure healthy life. To maintain this energy homeostasis, the brain is engaged in continuous dialogue with peripheral tissues to regulate the fraction of energy which enters the organism (food intake) and that which leaves the organism (energy expenditure). To exert this role, the brain is able to sense metabolic signals -including hormones and nutrients that convey information about the nutritional status and body energy stores, and respond responds via efferent regulatory signals –channeled mostly via the endocrine and the autonomic nervous system– to restore energy balance. In the last decade, it has become clear that tanycytes –peculiar hypothalamic glial cells lining the bottom of the third ventricle– are in prime position to detect variations of nutrient and hormone levels and to then transmit the metabolic information to neurons. Our research aims at understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the dialogue between tanycytes and neurons, the heterogeneity of these interactions as well as their functional disturbances induced by obesity.

Our expertise includes neuroanatomy, gene expression profiling, and animal physiology with a focus on energy balance and glucose homeostasis.

Keywords

• Energy balance
• Brain metabolic sensing
• Tanycyte
• Neuron-Glia communication
• Hypothalamus
• Obesity