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Volume 8 Issue 5, May 2005

Obesity and related metabolic disorders are on the rise worldwide. To effectively combat this new epidemic, we need a detailed understanding of the mechanisms that regulate energy intake and expenditure. In this issue we present four review articles, a perspective and a commentary highlighting current progress in the neurobiology of feeding regulation, energy metabolism and obesity. This special focus is sponsored by the Obesity Research Task Force of the National Institutes of Health. Cover image: "Venus from Willendorf," ca. 25,000-22,000 BCE. © Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. (pp 551-589)

Volume 8 Issue 5

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Editorial

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Correspondence

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Book Review

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News & Views

  • In V1, neurons preferring similar orientations are grouped in columns too small to be resolved by conventional fMRI. Two studies circumvent this limitation by using algorithms to recognize patterns of activation across a large area. This new trick allows the authors to distinguish responses to different orientations in human V1 and to study its contribution to conscious perception.

    • Geoffrey M Boynton
    News & Views

  • Activation of G protein–coupled receptors can inhibit secretion of neurotransmittters and hormones. Two recent reports in Nature Neuroscience show that this inhibition is due to Gβγ binding to SNAP-25, directly blocking the vesicle fusion machinery.

    • Jane Sullivan
    News & Views

  • Actin destabilization is an early step in specifying axon identity in young neurons. A new paper proposes a molecular mechanism for this process, but the data can also be explained by making a distinction between axon specification and axon growth.

    • Hui Jiang
    • Yi Rao
    News & Views

  • Song learning in juvenile birds is guided by daytime sensorimotor feedback, but nighttime sleep is also integral to song learning, reports a study in Nature, setting the stage for physiological insights into sleep-dependent learning mechanisms.

    • Daniel Margoliash
    News & Views

  • Postsynaptic receptor trafficking is associated with long-term synaptic plasticity, but whether this mechanism actually mediates learning is unclear. A new study shows that fear learning drives AMPA receptors into synapses in the lateral amygdala.

    • Dan Ehninger
    • Anna Matynia
    • Alcino J Silva
    News & Views
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Introduction

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Sponsors' Foreword

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Commentary

  • To the degree that drugs and food activate common reward circuitry in the brain, drugs offer powerful tools for understanding the neural circuitry that mediates food-motivated habits and how this circuitry may be hijacked to cause appetitive behaviors to go awry.

    • Nora D Volkow
    • Roy A Wise
    Commentary
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Perspective

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Review Article

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Brief Communication

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Article

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Focus

  • Food intake and body weight are subject to complex regulation by the hypothalamus and other brain centers. This focus presents six commissioned articles highlighting current progress in the neurobiology of feeding regulation, energy metabolism and obesity. It is sponsored by the Obesity Research Task Force of the National Institutes of Health, and freely accessible through July 2005.

    Focus
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