PHAR 5091.010

Course Name: Appetite Control: Adiposity Hormones and Neuropeptides

Course Director: Dr. Xin-Yun Lu

Course Content:

Appetite is tightly controlled by a complicated network with orexigenic and anorexigenic signals interacting both peripherally and centrally. This course will introduce students to adiposity hormones (leptin, adiponectin, and insulin) and neuropeptides (alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone, agouti-related protein, neuropeptide Y, and cocaine-amphetamine-regulated-transcript) that regulate appetite and manage body weight.  How adiposity hormones communicate with the network involving appetite-regulating neuropeptides will be discussed. The objective of this course is to provide students with recent advances in our understanding of molecular, genetic, and neural mechanisms that underlie eating disorders such as obesity and anorexia.

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Grading:

This course will meet once per week for 1 hour. The content of this course will change based upon contemporary papers. Students will read the papers and be expected to answer questions during each discussion. Discussions of the paper contents will be formatted in a journal club style. At the end of class, the students will be required to give an oral presentation and write a review paper covering appetite-regulating factors discussed in the class (6-8 pages, double-spaced). Grading will be assigned based on participation in discussions (40%), oral presentation (20%), and the review paper (40%) using letter grades (A-F).

Pre-requisites: Consent of Instructor

Credit hours: 1 credit

When offered: Fall and Spring Semesters