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  • RESEARCH BRIEFINGS

Neural basis of why mammals eat more in the cold

Feeding and the maintenance of internal body temperature are tightly linked in warm-blooded animals, and mammals eat more in the cold to maintain their body heat. Experiments reveal that a small nucleus in the brain’s thalamus controls feeding behaviour specifically in cold conditions by directly activating a reward centre in the brain.

This is a summary of: Lal, N. K. et al. Xiphoid nucleus of the midline thalamus controls cold-induced food seeking. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06430-9 (2023).

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02384-0

‘Expert opinion’ and the figure are published under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

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