Check out our new paper in Neuron! We wear coats, turn on heaters, and enjoy hot drinks on cold days. Strikingly little is known about this everyday behavior—even a forebrain region, not to speak of a cell type. We finally discovered and characterized them.

Jung, S.^#, Lee, M.^#, Kim, D. -Y.^#, Son, C., Ahn, B. H., Heo, G., Kim, M., Park, H. -E., Koo, D. J., Park, J. H., Lee, J. W., Kim, S. -Y. (2022). A forebrain neural substrate for behavioral thermoregulation. Neuron. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2021.09.039. ^#Equal contribution

Thermoregulatory behavior is a basic motivated behavior for body temperature homeostasis. Despite its fundamental importance, a forebrain region or defined neural population required for this process has yet to be established.

We found that Vgat-expressing neurons in the lateral hypothalamus (LH^Vgat neurons) are required for diverse thermoregulatory behaviors. The population activity of LHVgat neurons is increased during thermoregulatory behavior and bidirectionally encodes thermal punishment and reward (P&R). While this population also regulates feeding and caloric reward, inhibition of parabrachial inputs selectively impaired thermoregulatory behaviors and encoding of thermal stimulus by LH^Vgat neurons.

Furthermore, two-photon calcium imaging revealed a subpopulation of LH^Vgat neurons bidirectionally encoding thermal P&R, which is engaged during thermoregulatory behavior, but is largely distinct from caloric reward-encoding LH^Vgat neurons.

Our data establish LH^Vgat neurons as a required neural substrate for behavioral thermoregulation and point to the key role of the thermal P&R-encoding LH^Vgat subpopulation in thermoregulatory behavior.

Huge thanks to our team of stellar grad students, especially co-first authors Sieun, Myungsun and Dong-Yoon. It is truly an honor and privilege to work alongside them. Congrats!!!

Also view Sung-Yon’s 20-min talk on this work!