The lateral hypothalamus (LH) controls energy balance. LH melanin-concentrating-hormone (MCH) and orexin/hypocretin (OH) neurons mediate energy accumulation and expenditure, respectively. MCH cells promote memory and appropriate stimulus-reward associations; their inactivation disrupts energy-optimal behaviour and causes weight loss. However, MCH cell dynamics during wakefulness are unknown, leaving it unclear if they differentially participate in brain activity during sensory processing. By fiberoptic recordings from molecularly defined populations of LH neurons in awake freely moving mice, we show that MCH neurons generate conditional population bursts. This MCH cell activity correlates with novelty exploration, is inhibited by stress and is inversely predicted by OH cell activity. Furthermore, we obtain brain-wide maps of monosynaptic inputs to MCH and OH cells, and demonstrate optogenetically that VGAT neurons in the amygdala and bed nucleus of stria terminalis inhibit MCH cells. These data reveal cell-type-specific LH dynamics during sensory integration, and identify direct neural controllers of MCH neurons.

中文翻译：

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下丘脑MCH和orexin网络的清醒动力学和全脑直接输入。

下丘脑外侧（LH）控制能量平衡。LH黑色素浓缩激素（MCH）和orexin / hypocretin（OH）神经元分别介导能量积累和消耗。MCH细胞促进记忆和适当的刺激-奖励关联；它们的失活会破坏能量最佳行为并导致体重减轻。然而，MCH细胞在清醒过程中的动力学是未知的，尚不清楚它们是否在感觉处理过程中差异参与大脑活动。通过清醒自由移动的小鼠中LH神经元的分子定义种群的光纤记录，我们显示MCH神经元产生条件性种群爆发。这种MCH细胞活性与新奇探索相关，受压力抑制，而与OH细胞活性相反。此外，我们获得了对MCH和OH细胞的单突触输入的全脑图，并在光遗传学上证明杏仁核和纹状体床核中的VGAT神经元抑制了MCH细胞。这些数据揭示了感觉整合过程中特定于细胞类型的LH动态，并确定了MCH神经元的直接神经控制器。