Role of NPY in the integration of fear and food intake

An estimated 100 million people in Europe and the USA are suffering from anxiety-related disorders, which are frequently accompanied by altered food intake. Fear and anxiety are fundamentally controlled by specific brain areas and serve as protective mechanisms to promote survival in a natural environment. In a similar fashion, also food intake is an essential, life-sustaining behavior and interacts with fear and anxiety in various ways. Interestingly, both phenomena are significantly modulated by specific neurotransmitter of the central nervous system. Understanding how feeding- and fear/anxiety-related neuronal circuitries interact and integrate into a wider brain network and whether this depends on the availably of the individual neurotransmitter systems may provide a basis for finding new therapies. Neuropeptides are small proteins that severe as modulatory neurotransmitters in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Relatively high amounts of these neuropeptides are expressed in limbic brain areas and are fundamentally shaping emotional behaviors. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is one of these neuropeptides, which is strongly expressed in the amygdala, a brain area central for emotional processing. However, the contribution of the amygdala to metabolic processing is only beginning to emerge. We want to investigate whether NPY modulates emotion-driven food intake in amygdala circuities and identify which receptors are responsible for these effects. We will combine genetic and pharmacological modification of NPY neurons in defined brain areas with metabolic and emotional-affective behavioral testing. Implementation of CRISPR/cas9 technologies will allow us to address dedicated neurotransmitters of specific neuronal populations in metabolic and fear / anxiety-dependent testing. Furthermore, we want to identify and manipulate dedicated ensembles of neurons, so called neuronal engrams that are related to the expression of fear and hunger. This project will add new insights into the function of a specific neuropeptide (NPY) as well as its neuronal pathways. It will add completely novel findings about the metabolic relevance of NPY and integrate these data into different aspects of emotional-affective processing. It will also demonstrate how NPY modifies the integration of hunger and fear and produces an adaptive behavior.