Claudia Huerta1, Jinqi Li1, Hsiao-Ying Wey2, Timothy Q. Duong1
1UTHSCSA, San Antonio, TX, United States; 2Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, Massachussetts, United States
The hypothalamus plays a pivot role in the regulation of satiety and hunger. This study optimized imaging parameters to ensure reliable detection and stability of EPI signals from the hypothalamic and applied rsfMRI to identify hypothalamic network regulating hunger and satiety in healthy lean subjects. We identified common and different activated structures before and after food ingestion, some are established and some appeared novel. Future studies will focus on validation, extend this approach to study hypothalamic connectivity in obese subjects to attempt to undercover pathological neural mechanisms regulating satiety.