The hypothalamus, a region key to regulating food intake, energy expenditure, and body weight, contains many peptides and neurotransmitters that influence energy homeostasis. The neurons in the arcuate nucleus that express neuropeptide Y and project to the paraventricular nucleus have been the subject of particular attention. Neuropeptide Y injected into the paraventricular nucleus induces hyperphagia and weight gain and the arcuato-paraventricular neurons are implicated both in homeostatic responses to energy deficit and in causing obesity in rodents. Some potential modulators of the activity of these neurons are insulin and leptin (inhibitory) and glucocorticoids (stimulatory). Selective neuropeptide Y antagonists are being developed that could act on putative feeding neuropeptide Y receptors in the hypothalamus to induce weight loss; such agents may be useful in treating obesity and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. The relative importance of neuropeptide Y and other appetite-modulating peptides, such as the appetite stimulant galanin and possibly satiety agents (cholecystokinin and bombesin), is unknown.
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Dryden et al. (1996) studied this question.