Feeding behaviour articles from across Nature Portfolio

A study in Drosophilareveals a mechanism of non-homeostatic hunger and its critical relevance for memory consolidation.

Leveraging pythons as an extreme model of feeding and fasting behaviour, this study uncovers para-tyramine-O-sulphate as a conserved postprandial metabolite that links nutrient intake to energy balance by activating hypothalamic neurons and suppressing food intake in pythons and mice.

Tanycyte-derived extracellular vesicles are shown to regulate feeding diurnality and metabolic balance through insulin precursor-mediated targeting and delivery of mTORC components to hypothalamic neurons.

Here, the authors show that early-life high-fat/high-sugar diet induces sex-specific alterations in adult feeding behavior, hypothalamic transcriptome and blood metabolome, with Bifidobacterium longum and prebiotic FOS + GOS administration restoring these effects via distinct mechanisms, highlighting their therapeutic potential.

Warm-sensing leptin receptor neurons in the preoptic hypothalamus suppress feeding by reducing meal size and increasing satiety. This study shows they integrate temperature and metabolic signals via melanocortin circuits to regulate body weight.

A study published in Nature Metabolism shows that extracellular vesicles from a small group of hypothalamic α-tanycytes direct diurnal feeding behaviour to maintain body weight and glucose homeostasis.