title: Embryonic development of the hypothalamic feeding circuitry: Transcriptional, nutritional, and hormonal influences.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Embryonic neurogenesis and differentiation in the hypothalamic feeding circuitry is under the control of a variety of diffused morphogens and intrinsic transcription factors, leading to the unique structural and functional characteristics of each nucleus.
  
  
  METHODS
  The transcriptional regulation of the development of feeding neuroendocrine systems during the period of embryonic neurogenesis and differentiation will be reviewed here, with a special emphasis on genetic and environmental manipulations that yield an adverse metabolic phenotype.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Emerging data suggest that developmental mechanisms can be perturbed not only by genetic manipulation, but also by manipulations to maternal nutrition during the gestational period, leading to long-lasting behavioral, neurobiological, and metabolic consequences. Leptin is neurotrophic in the embryonic brain, and given that it varies in proportion to maternal energy balance, may mediate these effects through an interaction with the mechanisms of hypothalamic development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada.
authors.forename: Harry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: MacKay
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada.
authors.forename: Alfonso
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Abizaid
keywords: Basic helix-loop helix; Developmental origins of health and disease; Hypothalamic neurogenesis; Leptin