Sleep and Metabolism: Implication of Lateral Hypothalamic Neurons

During the last decade, optogenetic-based circuit mapping has become one of most common approaches to systems neuroscience, and amassing studies have expanded our understanding brain structures causally involved in regulation sleep-wake cycles. Recent imaging technologies enable functional cellular activity, from population down single-cell resolution, across a broad repertoire behaviors physiological processes, including states. This chapter summarizes experimental evidence implicating hypocretins/orexins, melanin-concentrating hormone, inhibitory neurons lateral hypothalamus (LH) forming an intricate network regulating sleep metabolism, feeding behaviors. It further confirms dual sleep-metabolic functions LH cells, sheds light on possible mechanism underlying plasticity during metabolic disorders.