American Physiological Society, American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 6(274), p. R1829-R1833, 1998
DOI: 10.1152/ajpregu.1998.274.6.r1829
Full text: Unavailable
Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) mediates many of the behavioral responses to infection and inflammation, and IL-1β-converting enzyme (ICE) processes intracellular IL-1β, leading to its maturation and secretion. Here we demonstrate that intracerebroventricular injections of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) produced a greater reduction in both food intake and food-motivated behavior in wild-type compared with ICE-deficient (ICE −/−) mice. This defect occurred although ICE −/− mice were able to fully respond to intracerebroventricular injections of IL-1β. In contrast, ICE −/− mice remained fully responsive to intraperitoneal injections of LPS. These results indicate that brain, but not peripheral, IL-1β plays a critical role in the depression in food intake that occurs during inflammation.