Moran, Timothy H., Ph.D.

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

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 and how these systems go awry in obesity and eating disorders.  Specific projects have focused on: brain/gut peptides as feedback mediators of satiety and how signals arising from these peptides interact with hypothalamic signaling systems mediating overall energy balance, interactions between exercise and food intake, how alterations in cellular energy availability and production result in signals that modify food intake, and how developmental and epigenetic factors can produce long term alterations in neural signaling that bias the organism’s long term metabolic phenotype. We conduct experiments at multiple levels using cell and rodent models as well as nonhuman primates and normal and patient populations. This work has resulted in over 280 original data articles, reviews and book chapters. 

Selected Publications

Gao, S., Kinzig, K.P., Aja, S., Scott, K.A., Kung, W., Kelly, S., Strynadka, K., Chohnan, S., Smith, W.W., Tamashiro, K.L.L., Ladenheim, E.L., Ronnett, G.V., Tu, Y., Birnbaum, M.J., Lopaschuk, G.D. and Moran, T.H.:  Leptin activates hypothalamic acetyl-CoA carboxylase to inhibit food intake. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104: 17358-17363, 2007.

Tamashiro, K.L.K., Terrillion, C.E., Hyun, J., Koenig, J.I. and Moran, T.H.: Prenatal stress or high fat diet increases susceptibility to diet-induced obesity in rat offspring.  Diabetes 58: 1116-1125, 2009.

Dailey M.J., Tamashiro, K.L.K., Terrilion, C.E. and Moran, T.H.:  Nutrient specific feeding and endocrine effects of jejunal infusions.  Obesity, 18: 904-910, 2010.

Liang, N-C, Bello, N.T. and Moran, T.H.: Experience with activity based anorexia enhances conditioned taste aversion learning in rats.  Physiology and Behavior 102:51-57, 2010