Elisabeth Walters
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Martin Myers Jr
Research Mentor School/College/Department: / Medicine
Program:
Authors: Elisabeth Walters, Yi Wang, Martin Myers Jr
Session: Session 6: 3:40 pm – 4:30 pm
Poster: 24
Abstract
The topic of the research is about the roles of the certain neurons as leptin receptor populations in energy balance and endocrine function, e.g. feeding behavior, glucose, and hormone levels. The purpose of the project is to seek new knowledge about the Pirt neuron and its functions. The project uses stereotaxic surgery to inject different Cre-dependent viruses into the hypothalamus arcuate in Pirt cre animals and to create functional animal models for further experiments. Once animal models are established, Clozapine N-oxide (CNO) injections are used to help manipulate the Pirt neuron, for example to activate or inhibit it. The animal studies include feeding behavior, glucose challenge, and stress response testing. After perfusion and extraction, the brains are sectioned and processed with immunofluorescence staining with multiple antibodies for validating the animal models and detecting interested molecule expression. ImageJ software and a fluorescent microscope are used to take pictures, analyze the fluorescence intensity and merge different fluorescence channels. For data analysis, GraphPad Prism software is used to assess significance and create graphs. Up to now, there has been some data found in relation to endocrine function- when the Pirt neuron is activated, an increase in pituitary hormones and a decrease in glucose has been observed. It is hypothesized that the Pirt neuron could help with maintaining blood glucose and that it may play a role in the treatment of diabetes. As this project is ongoing, there are not yet main conclusions or results. Information about the Pirt neuron can be used to figure out its impacts in the body and can be useful for drug development. This research can help people with diabetes and can help with understanding of the disease and contribute to possible medications or therapies. It can benefit individuals, organizations, and companies associated with diabetes.
