Convergence of gastric vagal and cerebellar fastigial nuclear inputs on glycemia-sensitive neurons of lateral hypothalamic area in the rat

Gastric vagal and cerebellar fastigial nuclear afferents have been implicated in the regulation of food intake by their communication with lateral hypothalamic area (LHA), which is generally referred to be the feeding center. This study was designed to examine the possible convergence of the inputs from the gastric vagal trunks and cerebellar fastigial nucleus (FN) on the LHA neurons. Among recorded 191 LHA neurons, 99 (51.8%) responded to the stimulation of the gastric vagal trunks, of which 55 (55.6%) also responded to the cerebellar FN stimulation. Of 62 LHA neurons that responded to the gastric vagal stimulation, 43 (69.4%) showed an inhibitory response to the intravenous glucose application indicating they were glycemia-sensitive neurons. When the gastric vagal trunks and cerebellar FN were stimulated simultaneously, a summation of the responses usually could be seen in the recorded LHA neurons (16/20, 80%). Moreover, of 45 LHA neurons that responded to both of the gastric vagal trunks and FN stimuli, 30 (66.7%) were identified to be glycemia-sensitive neurons. These results demonstrated that gastric vagal afferents could reach glycemia-sensitive neurons of the LHA, and that the inputs from cerebellar FN and gastric vagal trunks could converge onto glycemia-sensitive neurons in the LHA. According to the facts that gastric vagal inputs and blood glucose level may transmit meal-related visceral signals and FN may forward the somatic information to the LHA, we suggest that an integration of the somatic-visceral response related to the food intake may take place in the LHA following the gastric vagal and cerebellar FN afferent inputs and the integration may play an important role in the short-term regulation of feeding behavior. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd and the Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.