Professor
Paul R. McHugh Professor, Vice Chair, Director of Research
Director, Behavioral Neuroscience Laboratory
Main Office Address
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
618 Ross
720 Rutland Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21205
Phone: 410-955-2344
Fax: 410-502-3769
E-mail: tmoran@jhmi.edu
Administrative Assistant
Barbara Cross
Phone: 410-502-4155
E-mail: bcross2@jhmi.edu
Education
1972 | B.A. | Trinity College |
1982 | Ph.D. | The Johns Hopkins University |
Professional Interests
Our overall research program is aimed at identifying the roles of various neural signaling pathways in the controls of food intake and body weight. The current research takes a number of approaches. The first involves the identification of the neural representation of meal related satiety signals. Multiple feedback signaling pathways are activated by food ingestion and gastrointestinal presence of digestion products. We are examining how signals from multiple sites and stimulus modalities are integrated in the activity of individual vagal afferent fibers and within specific brain nuclei. The second approach involves the identification of interactions between peripheral, within meal, satiety signals and hypothalamic peptide systems involved in overall energy balance. We are currently examining how the activity of hypothalamic leptin, NPY, CCK, CFR, CART and melanocortin systems interact with ascending satiety pathways to alter meal size. These experiments are conducted at multiple levels including behavior, electrophysiology and gene expression and involve a variety of genetic models. We are also investigating how alteration in cellular energy availability and production are transduced into changes in food intake and body weight. These experiments take advantage of a novel group of chemicals to inhibit the production of fatty acids and to stimulate CPT-1. Finally, we are examining how exercise not only increases energy expenditure but also reduces food intake. These experiments focus on the regulation of peptide gene expression in hypothalamic systems involved in energy balance.
Selected Publications
Bi S, Scott KA, Kopin AS, Moran TH: Differential roles for cholecystokinin-A receptors in energy balance in rats and mice. Endocrinology 2004:145:3873-80.
Moran TH., Smedh U, Kinzig KP, Scott KA, Knipp S, Ladenheim EE: Peptide YY (3-36) inhibits gastric emptying and produces acute reductions in food intake in rhesus monkeys. American Journal of Physiology 2005:288: R384-R388.
Tu Y, Thupari JN Kim E-K, Pinn ML, Moran TH, Ronnett GV and Kuhajda FP: C75 alters central and peripheral gene expression to reduce food intake and increase energy expenditure. Endocrinology 2005:146:486-493.
Bi S, Scott KA, Hyun J, Ladenheim EE, Moran TH: Voluntary running wheel activity prevents hyperphagia and obesity in OLETF rats: role of hypothalamic signaling. Endocrinology 2005:146:1676-1685.
Ladenheim EE, Emond M, Moran, TH: Leptin enhances feeding suppression and neural activation produced by systemically administered bombesin. American Journal of Physiology 2005:289:473-477.
