Society: AGA

The autonomic nervous system, with its two branches the parasympathetic and the sympathetic, plays a pivotal role in the regulation of many physiological responses to maintain metabolic homeostasis in variable target tissues. In general, afferent or sensory fibers transmit metabolic information to the central nervous system, while efferent or motor fibers provide the major neural pathway from the brain to peripheral tissues. An imbalance between the two branches or the two arms of the autonomic nervous system branches is observed in many pathologic conditions. However, new developing technologies in selective electro-stimulation, pharmacogenetics, advanced barbaric endoscopy or new surgical techniques may allow careful manipulation of neuronal tracts of interest for possible future therapeutic purpose. The activation or inhibition of tissue-specific neural fibers can have a significant effect on key metabolic processes such as hepatic or skeletal muscle glucose trafficking, adipose tissue lipolysis and thus weight loss. Even though many techniques in neuroscience and molecular genetics are currently available to study the function of the autonomic nervous system, many aspects are still unknown regarding the extent of regulation of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems to glucose, lipid and energy homeostasis.

Hans Rudolf Berthoud

Pennigton Biomedical Research Center

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