Neurobiology of homeostasis congress

Peri-prandial autonomic and endocrine functions and dysfunctions: controllers of metabolism and contributors to multimorbidity

The workshop will provide a comprehensive overview of the current knowledge of the mechanisms involved in homeostasis with a particular focus on endocrine and autonomic functions and their role in cardiometabolic health and disease. The discussion will deal with how the relevant signals are conveyed to the brain and translated into appropriate behavioral, autonomic and endocrine output. This includes discussions on dysfunctions or disruptions of the bidirectional gut-brain communication in response to environmental factors that promote disbalance in eating and metabolism relevant for the pathophysiology of obesity and its associated cardio-metabolic diseases. One overarching goal of this meeting will be to initiate collaborations and develop novel and improved potential strategies to treat metabolic disease.

Textbooks typically describe many reactive homeostatic mechanisms. However, our body is too “intelligent” to always wait until a change has occurred that needs to be corrected. Rather it can learn about cues predicting an imminent change and to immediately initiate anticipatory counteractive measures to prevent this change from happening (“proactive homeostasis”). The proper functioning of these mechanisms is crucial for health. Their disturbances or dysfunctions are at the core of many health problems that are directly or indirectly related to eating, from obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus to cardiovascular diseases, to name the most important. Despite their multifactorial nature, the common and characteristic denominators in these conditions are primarily dysfunctions and disturbances of the neuroendocrine control of homeostasis and of the critical bi-directional communication between the involved peripheral organs and the brain as part of the homeostatic regulatory feedback loop. There is an urgent need for clear understanding of these mechanisms, which will help identify the “switching points” from a homeostatic (balanced) state to metabolic and cardiovascular dysregulation and inform precision medicine for prevention and clinical management of related morbidities. The conference will discuss these points guided by experts from basic science and the clinics.