α-Melanocyte stimulating hormone and ghrelin: Central interaction in feeding control

Pawel K. Olszewski, Eric M Bomberg, Martha K. Grace, Allen S Levine

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

α-Melanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH) and ghrelin play significant yet opposite roles in the regulation of feeding: α-MSH inhibits, whereas ghrelin stimulates consumption. The two peptidergic systems may interact in the process of food intake control. A single report published thus far has shown that a synthetic agonist of the melanocortin receptors, MTII, injected in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) decreases feeding generated by ghrelin. We found that very low doses of α-MSH and MTII administered ICV significantly reduced ghrelin-dependent hyperphagia. However, an endogenous molecule, α-MSH, infused in the PVN did not exert an inhibitory effect on ghrelin-induced consumption, whereas the effective dose of PVN MTII exceeded that necessary to decrease short-term deprivation-induced feeding. We conclude that it is likely that in feeding regulation α-MSH and ghrelin "interact" at the central nervous system level, but the involvement of the PVN in this interaction appears questionable.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2084-2089
Number of pages6
JournalPeptides
Volume28
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2007

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, by the NIDA Grant DA-03999, and the NIH grant P30 DK-50456.

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