Hypothalamic cell changes during menopause: the neuroendocrine origin of its metabolic alterations

forthcoming

Women health is heavily impacted by menopause, and specifically, metabolic alterations increase their prevalence compared to the pre-menopause stage. Among them, body weight increase associated with abdominal adiposity, augmented risk of metabolic syndrome accompanied with dyslipidemia, worsening of insulin resistance coupled to type 2 diabetes and reduced bone density which favors osteoporosis are commonly associated with this women’s period of life. The hypothalamus is a key brain area controlling several homeostatic systems such as energy balance, glucose homeostasis and bone metabolism. Ovarian hormones act on the hypothalamus to regulate female physiology but after menopause their production stops and both estradiol and progesterone are reduced to castrate levels. Previous data pointed that this lack of hormones affects hypothalamic function. However, whether menopause causes an alteration in the hypothalamic mechanisms controlling systemic metabolism and whether this potential impairment plays a role in the metabolic alterations associated with it, is currently unexplored. The global aim of HypoPause is to study the molecular and cell-specific changes occurring in the hypothalamus during menopause and understand their role in the pathophysiological mechanisms driving the metabolic alterations. To address this, a research plan will be implemented based on (i) multi-omics profiling and circuit plasticity assessment of the hypothalamus in preclinical models of menopause, ii) in vivo metabolic phenotyping and cell-specific manipulation of hypothalamic circuits in conditions mimicking menopause in rodents and iii) functional genome editing of molecular mechanisms in vivo and target-validation using human samples. HypoPause will provide the first molecular and cellular picture of the hypothalamic changes induced by menopause, and will represent groundbreaking research on the pathophysiological mechanisms of its metabolic associated comorbidities.