Obesity is an increasingly major health problem facing our society, with 2 out of 3 adults in the US characterized as overweight or clinically obese.  Many other health conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, depression, cancer, and stress and anxiety disorders have high rates of co-occurrence with obesity. Weight regulation is maintained by a very important balance between calories consumed and calories burned.  Even small imbalances in energy balance over long periods of time can lead to significant changes in body weight. For example, only 20 calories (one piece of hard candy) of excess caloric intake each day would lead to over 2 pounds of weight gain over the course of a year. 

For these reasons, it is now more important than ever to understand the circuitry responsible for energy homeostasis—both regulation of consumption of food and regulation of energy expenditure.  My research focuses on the role of the hypothalamus in regulating both ingestive behaviors and metabolic drive.  Melanocortin, a neuropeptide, is made in the hypothalamus and regulates both food consumption and energy expenditure and thus has a pivotal role in maintenance of energy homeostasis. My current research focus is the elucidation of the pathways and mechanisms through which peripheral signals of nutritional status (like insulin, leptin and glucose) mediate melanocortin regulation of sympathetic nerve activity and in turn, energy expenditure.  For these studies, we use site-specific microinjection of retrograde tracers and melanocortin receptor agonists and antagonists, immunohistochemistry, in vivo nerve recording, and in vivo single unit electrophysiological recordings.