Does the brain track how fast our blood glucose is changing? Knowing such a rate of change would enable the prediction of an upcoming state and a timelier response to this new state. Hypothalamic arousal-orchestrating hypocretin/orexin neurons (HONs) have been proposed to be glucose sensors, yet whether they track glucose concentration (proportional tracking) or rate of change (derivative tracking) is unknown. Using simultaneous recordings of HONs and blood glucose in behaving male mice, we found that maximal HON responses occur in considerable temporal anticipation (minutes) of glucose peaks due to derivative tracking. Analysis of >900 individual HONs revealed glucose tracking in most HONs (98%), with derivative and proportional trackers working in parallel, and many (65%) HONs multiplexed glucose and locomotion information. Finally, we found that HON activity is important for glucose-evoked locomotor suppression. These findings reveal a temporal dimension of brain glucose sensing and link neurobiological and algorithmic views of blood glucose perception in the brain’s arousal orchestrators.

大脑是否追踪我们的血糖变化速度？了解这样的变化率将能够预测即将到来的状态并对这个新状态做出更及时的响应。下丘脑唤醒协调的下丘脑分泌素/食欲素神经元（HON）被认为是葡萄糖传感器，但它们是否跟踪葡萄糖浓度（比例跟踪）或变化率（导数跟踪）尚不清楚。通过同时记录行为雄性小鼠的 HON 和血糖，我们发现由于导数跟踪，最大 HON 反应发生在葡萄糖峰值的相当长的时间预期（分钟）内。对超过 900 个个体 HON 的分析揭示了大多数 HON (98%) 中的葡萄糖跟踪，导数和比例跟踪器并行工作，并且许多 (65%) HON 复用了葡萄糖和运动信息。最后，我们发现 HON 活性对于葡萄糖诱发的运动抑制很重要。这些发现揭示了大脑葡萄糖感知的时间维度，并将大脑唤醒协调器中血糖感知的神经生物学和算法观点联系起来。