Featured Review Cellscience Reviews Vol 3 No 4 ISSN 1742-8130

Hypothalamic glucose sensing neurons in health, obesity & diabetes

The hypothalamus contains specialized neurons which are exquisitely sensitive to changes in extracellular glucose. There are four major subtypes of hypothalamic glucose sensing neurons which directly sense changes in extracellular glucose. Two of these subtypes respond to physiological changes in extracellular glucose and two are sensitive to changes in glucose which may occur during diabetic hyperglycemia. Glucose sensing neurons are impaired under situations where central glucose sensing is diminished (e.g., obesity and recurrent hypoglycemia). Furthermore, they are regulated by hormones important to the control of energy homeostasis (e.g., insulin, leptin). This suggests that they may play an important role in the regulation of glucose homeostasis. This review focuses on recent findings regarding the properties of the four major categories of hypothalamic glucose sensing neurons, and how these neurons become dysfunctional when glucose and energy homeostasis are perturbed.

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