Abstract:
Animals have to coordinate and prioritize multiple, at times competing basic needs to ensure survival and reproduction. Nutritional needs, such as hunger and thirst, ought to be balanced and weighed against competing needs like mating. Despite a long-known crucial role of the lateral hypothalamus (LH) in the regulation of hunger and thirst, the neuronal mechanisms enabling representation and orchestration of multiple innate behaviours are not yet understood. Using deep-brain calcium imaging in freely behaving mice, optogenetics and chemogenetics, we investigated functions of two complementary neuronal populations in LH in feeding and social interaction. Despite hunger, LepR neurons limit feeding while promoting social interaction. Accordingly, increased food consumption is marked by escalating inhibition of a leptin-sensitive LepRLH subpopulation at a fast time scale. Conversely, Nts neurons specifically prioritize drinking despite hunger, and reduce social interactions. Thus, both LH populations act in a complementary manner to enable the flexible fulfillment of multiple essential needs.
Biography:
Tatiana Korotkova studied biology with a focus on human and animal physiology in Lomonosov Moscow State University. During her Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. R.E. Brown and Prof. H.L. Haas in Düsseldorf she investigated actions of various hypothalamic neuropeptides on aminergic nuclei, particularly on dopaminergic system. As a postdoc in the lab of Prof H. Monyer in Heidelberg, and later in a collaboration with Prof. T. J. Jentsch in Berlin she studied mechanisms of hippocampal network oscillations in behaving transgenic mice. In 2012-2017 T. Korotkova was a junior group leader at the Leibniz Institute of Molecular Pharmacology (FMP)/Neurocure Cluster of Excellence in Berlin, in 2017-2019 - a research group leader at MPI for Metabolism Research. Since 2019 T.Korotkova is a Full Professor and Managing Director at the Institute of Physiology, University of Cologne. She was a holder of the DFG and Schering foundation research stipends, and was awarded the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Grant as well as the Junior Brain Prize by Lundbeck Foundation. The group of Tatiana Korotkova investigates neuronal mechanisms of innate behaviors, including feeding, social interactions and voluntary locomotion, in health and disease. Her research is supported by the European Research Council and by the German Research Organization (DFG). She supervised 10 Ph.D. and 12 M.Sc. students, and co-authored 29 peer-reviewed original publications, 3 reviews as well as one book chapter.