The hypothalamic response to starvation: implications for the study
of wasting disorders.
Schwartz, Michael W., Mary F. Dallman, and Stephen C. Woods.
Departments of Medicine and Psychology, University of Washington
and Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Seattle, WA 98108, and
Department of Physiology, University of California at San Francisco,
San Francisco, CA 94143
APStracts 2:0219R, 1995.
Weight loss is a potent stimulus to food intake in normal individuals.
The persistence of anorexia in wasting disorders, therefore, implies
a failure of this adaptive feeding response. We describe a model for
the normal hypothalamic response to starvation, comprised of the
stimulation of neuronal pathways that promote energy intake and
storage coupled with the inhibition of pathways that exert opposing
effects. This model provides a framework for investigating
disturbances of the normal hypothalamic response to weight loss and
suggests a specific mechansim by which cytokines contribute to
wasting in AIDS and other cachexic disorders.
Received 25 July 1995; accepted in final form 27 July 1995.
APS Manuscript Number R485-5.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Regulatory Integrative
Comp. Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 14 August 1995.