A tiny cluster of nerve cells in the brain—the hypothalamus—controls your body temperature, weight, and mood, yet scientists know almost nothing about how it first forms in the embryo. This project aims to fill that fundamental gap. The hypothalamus works by sending signals to the nearby pituitary gland, which then releases hormones that regulate the body’s constancy. Because the nerve cells that do this job are born during embryonic development, understanding how they arise normally is a prerequisite for figuring out what goes wrong in disease. This is fundamental science, not applied medicine. There is no immediate practical application. However, the abstract explicitly raises the possibility that a deeper understanding of normal hypothalamic development could eventually allow researchers to use stem cell technology to create new hypothalamic nerve cells. That would be a long-term goal. For now, the research asks basic questions: how do specific cell types emerge within the hypothalamus, how do early embryonic cells give rise to later ones, and are the future regions of the hypothalamus already mapped out in the early embryo?
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Your body is made up of millions of different cells, which work together in a co-ordinated way. One group of cells that are really important in co-ordinating your body are nerve cells. A single nerve cells can integrate all sorts of information, decide what to do with it, and then instruct another cell to carry out a task in response. It is difficult to exaggerate just how important are a set of nerve cells that are found in a small region of your brain, called the hypothalamus. Nerve cells here are responsible for maintaining your constancy: your temperature, weight, mood, to name but a few. They act by controlling other cells in a tiny gland just next to them ? the pituitary gland. Cells in the pituitary gland release hormones in response to messages sent to them from hypothalamic nerves. Despite the huge importance of the hypothalamus, we know very little about how it forms in the embryo. Why do we want to know this? It is because the nerve cells that are found in the adult hypothalamus are actually born in the embryo. If we can understand how they develop normally, then we can hope to understand how they go wrong in disease and disorders. We may even be able to use stem cell technology to create new hypothalamic nerves. Many of the questions that we wish to address in this proposal deal with the basic development of the hypothalamus: how do specific cell types arise within the hypothalamus?; how do early embryonic cell types underpin the later cells in the hypothalamus?; are the different regions of the later hypothalamus already set aside in the early embryo?
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