title: Taotie neurons regulate appetite in Drosophila.
abstract: The brain has an essential role in maintaining a balance between energy intake and expenditure of the body. Deciphering the processes underlying the decision-making for timely feeding of appropriate amounts may improve our understanding of physiological and psychological disorders related to feeding control. Here, we identify a group of appetite-enhancing neurons in a behavioural screen for flies with increased appetite. Manipulating the activity of these neurons, which we name Taotie neurons, induces bidirectional changes in feeding motivation. Long-term stimulation of Taotie neurons results in flies with highly obese phenotypes. Furthermore, we show that the in vivo activity of Taotie neurons in the neuroendocrine region reflects the hunger/satiety states of un-manipulated animals, and that appetitive-enhancing Taotie neurons control the secretion of insulin, a known regulator of feeding behaviour. Thus, our study reveals a new set of neurons regulating feeding behaviour in the high brain regions that represents physiological hunger states and control feeding behaviour in Drosophila.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.|University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Yin Peng
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.|University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.|University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001066:Appetite / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000502:physiology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006815:Hunger / Q000502:physiology; D007328:Insulin / Q000378:metabolism; D000078790:Insulin Secretion; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D009765:Obesity / Q000503:physiopathology; D010641:Phenotype; D012527:Satiation / Q000502:physiology; D013217:Starvation / Q000503:physiopathology
chemical_list: D007328:Insulin