Nature Metabolism, Published online: 13 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s42255-026-01565-1Using activity-dependent genetic labelling in mice, the authors identify cold-activated neurons in the parabrachial nucleus that coordinate autonomic, metabolic, behavioural and affective adaptations to cold exposure.

The idea of ‘biological agency’ — that life devises its own goals and behaves accordingly — complicates our understanding of what it means to be alive. But does it serve a scientific purpose?

Anthropology has long considered the evolution of our uniquely human endurance capacities to be the result of selection upon anatomical and physiological features imposed by the demands of thermoregu...

Let’s talk about energy allocation, also known as energy partitioning! We’ll concentrate on animals that control their body temperature…

Rising environmental temperatures challenge nervous systems. We examine how neural systems enable acclimation to prolonged heat exposure, the limits of such adaptation, and the behavioural and social ...

Neri et al. develop elegant tools to understand how the sympathetic nervous system regulates intrascapular brown adipose tissue (iBAT) function. Using these tools, they find that sympathetic nerves ta...

Host body temperature can define a virus’s replicative profile—influenza A viruses (IAVs) adapted to 40° to 42°C in birds are less temperature sensitive in vitro compared with human isolates adapted t...

The neuroimmune corollaries of systemic inflammation can generate anxiodepressive behaviors and psychomotor slowing. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is a …

Abstract. Selective pressures have led to the development of innumerable unique strategies to maximize fitness—an organism's ability to survive and reprodu

Glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor (GLP1R) agonists like semaglutide drive weight loss through the brain, but insights into their intracellular signaling mechanisms are lacking. Although canonically GLP...

Extreme metabolic adaptations can elucidate genetic programs that govern mammalian metabolism. Here, we used convergent evolutionary changes in hibernating lineages to define conserved cis-regulatory ...

Natural sciences; Biological sciences; Physiology; Neuroscience

The search for neural mechanisms of behaviour often relies on a synchronic, driving view of causation, where neural activity drives more neural activity, which eventually drives behaviour. The real c...

Systemic lipid homeostasis requires hepatic autophagy to recycle intracellular fat. Here, the authors identify peripheral mechanisms regulating energy homeostasis, showing that MC3R is a regulator of ...

This study investigated the sex-specific effects of commonly prescribed appetite suppressants on body weight and the manifestation of motor side effects, specifically stereotypy. Employing video recor...

Nucleus accumbens (NAc) dopamine D1 receptor-expressing neurons are known to be critical for processing reward and regulating food intake. However, the role of D2-expressing neurons in this nucleus re...