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Junkins MS, Bagriantsev SN, Gracheva EO. Towards understanding the neural origins of hibernation. J Exp Biol. 2022;225(1)doi: 10.1242/jeb.229542.
Junkins, M. S., Bagriantsev, S. N., & Gracheva, E. O. (2022). Towards understanding the neural origins of hibernation. The Journal of experimental biology, 225(1), . https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.229542
Junkins, Madeleine S, et al. "Towards understanding the neural origins of hibernation." The Journal of experimental biology vol. 225,1 (2022). doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.229542
Junkins MS, Bagriantsev SN, Gracheva EO. Towards understanding the neural origins of hibernation. J Exp Biol. 2022 Jan 01;225(1). doi: 10.1242/jeb.229542. Epub 2022 Jan 04. PMID: 34982152.
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J Exp Biol. 2022 Jan 01;225(1). doi: 10.1242/jeb.229542. Epub 2022 Jan 04.

Towards understanding the neural origins of hibernation.

The Journal of experimental biology

Madeleine S Junkins, Sviatoslav N Bagriantsev, Elena O Gracheva

Affiliations

  1. Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.
  2. Department of Neuroscience and Program in Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration and Repair, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.

PMID: 34982152 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.229542

Abstract

Hibernators thrive under harsh environmental conditions instead of initiating canonical behavioral and physiological responses to promote survival. Although the physiological changes that occur during hibernation have been comprehensively researched, the role of the nervous system in this process remains relatively underexplored. In this Review, we adopt the perspective that the nervous system plays an active, essential role in facilitating and supporting hibernation. Accumulating evidence strongly suggests that the hypothalamus enters a quiescent state in which powerful drives to thermoregulate, eat and drink are suppressed. Similarly, cardiovascular and pulmonary reflexes originating in the brainstem are altered to permit the profoundly slow heart and breathing rates observed during torpor. The mechanisms underlying these changes to the hypothalamus and brainstem are not currently known, but several neuromodulatory systems have been implicated in the induction and maintenance of hibernation. The intersection of these findings with modern neuroscience approaches, such as optogenetics and in vivo calcium imaging, has opened several exciting avenues for hibernation research.

© 2022. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Keywords: Brainstem; Hibernation; Hypothalamus; Torpor

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests The authors declare no competing or financial interests.

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