The endocannabinoid system controls food intake via olfactory processes

Edgar Soria-Gómez (1) , Luigi Bellocchio (2, 3) , Leire Reguero (4) , Gabriel Lepousez (5) , Claire Martin (6) , Mounir Bendahmane (6) , Sabine Ruehle (7) , Floor Remmers (7) , Tiffany Desprez (1) , Isabelle Matias (1) , Theresa Wiesner (1) , Astrid Cannich (1) , Antoine Nissant (5) , Aya Wadleigh (1) , Hans-Christian Pape (8) , Anna Paola Chiarlone (2, 3) , Carmelo Quarta (9) , Danièle Verrier (1) , Peggy Vincent (1) , Federico Massa (1) , Beat Lutz (7) , Manuel Guzmán (2, 3) , Hirac Gurden (6) , Guillaume Ferreira (10) , Pierre-Marie Lledo (5) , Pedro Grandes (4) , Giovanni Marsicano (1)

1 Physiopathologie du système nerveux central - Institut François Magendie
2 CIBERNED - Centro de Investigacion Biomédica en Red sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas
3 UCM - Universidad Complutense de Madrid = Complutense University of Madrid [Madrid]
4 UPV/EHU - University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
5 Perception et Mémoire / Perception and Memory
6 IMNC (UMR_8165) - Imagerie et Modélisation en Neurobiologie et Cancérologie
7 JGU - Johannes Gutenberg - Universität Mainz = Johannes Gutenberg University
8 WWU - Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster = University of Münster
9 University of Bologna/Università di Bologna
10 NutriNeuro - Nutrition et Neurobiologie intégrée

Hunger arouses sensory perception, eventually leading to an increase in food intake, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. We found that cannabinoid type-1 (CB1) receptors promote food intake in fasted mice by increasing odor detection. CB1 receptors were abundantly expressed on axon terminals of centrifugal cortical glutamatergic neurons that project to inhibitory granule cells of the main olfactory bulb (MOB). Local pharmacological and genetic manipulations revealed that endocannabinoids and exogenous cannabinoids increased odor detection and food intake in fasted mice by decreasing excitatory drive from olfactory cortex areas to the MOB. Consistently, cannabinoid agonists dampened in vivo optogenetically stimulated excitatory transmission in the same circuit. Our data indicate that cortical feedback projections to the MOB crucially regulate food intake via CB1 receptor signaling, linking the feeling of hunger to stronger odor processing. Thus, CB1 receptor-dependent control of cortical feedback projections in olfactory circuits couples internal states to perception and behavior.

Keywords: Olfactory bulb; Feeding behaviour

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Food and Nutrition

Edgar Soria-Gómez, Luigi Bellocchio, Leire Reguero, Gabriel Lepousez, Claire Martin, et al.. The endocannabinoid system controls food intake via olfactory processes. Nature Neuroscience, 2014, 17 (3), pp.407 - 415. ⟨10.1038/nn.3647⟩. ⟨pasteur-01587186⟩