| Date: |
2 March 2011
-2 March 2011
|
| Time: |
1.00pm
- 2.00pm
|
| Location: |
Lecture Theatre 4, (Room 451), Regent Street |
| Speakers: |
Dr Joanne Murray, Department of Human and Health Sciences |
| For further information: |
Maria Flynn, flynnm@westminster.ac.uk |
Most folks are interested in sex and food, though not necessarily simultaneously or in any particular order. But remember the seduction scene from Tom Jones (the movie based on Fielding’s novel, not the Welsh singer). Nutrition has a profound effect on the reproductive axis but the mechanisms involved are still not well understood. Recently the neuropeptide Melanin Concentrating Hormone (MCH) has attracted attention. First discovered in teleost fish as a regulator of skin (scale) pigmentation it was subsequently shown to be abundantly expressed in the brain and pituitary not only of fish, but also mammals. MCH is one of several neuropeptides that regulate appetite and/or food intake but it is also involved in the regulation of other functions, and of particular relevance to the speaker, hypothalamic GnRH activity and hence reproductive physiology and psychophysiology. It gets better because recent findings suggest a role for the MCH system in the neurophysiology of anxiety and depression. Perhaps we are looking here at a deeply integrated system in the regulated of mood, emotion and motivation.
