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The Cerebellum in Feeding Control: Possible Function and Mechanism

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Abstract

Accumulating anatomical, functional, and behavioral studies reveal that the cerebellum is involved in the regulation of various visceral functions including feeding control. Cerebellar lesions may induce alterations in feeding behavior and decreases in body weight. Although the exact mechanisms underlying the cerebellar regulation of food intake is still unclear, a series of studies have demonstrated that there are neural pathways directly and/or indirectly connecting the cerebellum with several important centers for feeding control, such as the hypothalamus. Electrophysiological data suggest that via the direct cerebellohypothalamic projections, the cerebellar outputs may reach, converge, and be integrated with some critical feeding signals including gastric vagal afferents, CCK, leptin, and glycemia on single hypothalamic neurons. Furthermore, recent functional imaging studies provide substantial evidences that hunger, satiation, and thirst are accompanied with a cerebellar activation. Here we describe that the cerebellum may be much more than a movement coordinator and actively participate in feeding control, i.e., it may act as an essential node linking somatic and visceral systems and help to generate an integrated and coordinated somatic-visceral response in feeding behavior.

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Acknowledgments

Researches from our laboratory were supported by grants 39770249, 30070250, 30370462, 30670671, 30700201 and the NSFC/RGC Joint Research Scheme 30318004 from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, RFDP grant 20010284021, 20050284025 from the State Educational Ministry of China and grants BK97045, BK2002083, BK2006713 from the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China.

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  1. Department of Biological Science and Technology and State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Mailbox 426, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Jing-Ning Zhu & Jian-Jun Wang

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Zhu, JN., Wang, JJ. The Cerebellum in Feeding Control: Possible Function and Mechanism. Cell Mol Neurobiol 28, 469–478 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10571-007-9236-z

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