Language
English
Publication Date
8-23-2025
Journal
Nature Communications
DOI
10.1038/s41467-025-63170-2
PMID
40849319
PMCID
PMC12375006
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
8-23-2025
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Abstract
Olfactory perception of food odors is a key determinant of eating behavior, including triggering appetite, facilitating food seeking and influencing food choice. While transient food-related olfactory cues stimulate appetite and provoke cravings in states of hunger, emerging evidence implies that prolonged and sustained exposure to food-derived odor (FO) suppresses feeding. However, the mechanisms by which olfaction induces hypophagia remain elusive. In this study, we show that prolonged FO exposure significantly suppresses food intake in male mice. We identified a subset of neurons in the ventral subiculum (vSub) that are specifically activated by FO. We further discovered that these FO-activated neurons in the vSub receive excitatory inputs from the olfactory bulb (OB) and send glutamatergic projections to the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH). Inhibition of the OB → vSub → VMH circuit abolished the FO-induced reduction in food intake, while activation of this circuit suppressed feeding and reduced body weight. Together, these findings reveal a neurobiological circuitry that mediates the influence of olfactory signals on food intake regulation.
Keywords
Animals, Olfactory Bulb, Male, Odorants, Feeding Behavior, Eating, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Hypothalamus, Neurons, Smell, Olfactory Perception, Food, Body Weight, Feeding behaviour, Neural circuits
Published Open-Access
yes
Recommended Citation
Liu, Yao; Liu, Hailan; Wong, Huey-Xian Kelly; et al., "Prolonged Exposure to Food Odors Suppresses Feeding via an Olfactory Bulb-to-Hypothalamus Circuit" (2025). The Brown Foundation: Institute of Molecular Medicine. 35.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/molecular_med/35