Science Advances: Estrogen regulation may help women manage obesity

To better understand the critical role of the female hormone estrogen in maintaining energy balance and weight control, a team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine studied the interaction between estrogen and the specific brain regions that provide these anti-obesity benefits

In the journal Science Advances, the team revealed that estrogen-activated neural circuits can stimulate thermogenesis (or body heat production) and physical activity in animal models

This circuit responds not only to estrogen, but also to changes in ambient temperature and the animal's nutritional status

"My lab has long been interested in understanding sex differences in metabolic control," said co-corresponding author Yong Xu, Ph.

In previous studies, the researchers found that one of the estrogen receptors, ER-alpha, is expressed in several regions of the brain, including v1VMH in the hypothalamus

"What we didn't know at the time was the neural circuits that mediate these responses," Xu said

The researchers also found that this circuit responds to changes in ambient temperature and the animal's nutritional status

"For example, when the weather is cold, this circuit is activated, stimulating thermogenesis and physical activity, which will help the animals stay warm," Xu said

Xu and his colleagues studied this circuit in women as well as in men

"We found that this circuit is conserved in males—they have the same neurons that express ER-alpha and project to the same downstream brain regions

article title

An estrogen-sensitive hypothalamus-midbrain neural circuit controls thermogenesis and physical activity