ABOVE: A normal mouse (left) and one experiencing torpor (right) are shown with their thermal images (below). Torpor, like hibernation, is associated with a dramatic drop in body temperature.
TAKESHI SAKURAI
Research teams in the US and Japan have each discovered independently and by unrelated routes a population of hypothalamic neurons in mice that induce the low body temperature, reduced metabolism, and inactivity characteristic of hibernation and torpor. The two papers are published today (June 11) in Nature.
“Trying to pin down which neurons are involved with initiating torpor and hibernation . . . is certainly something that biologists have been interested in for several years now,” says biologist Steven Swoap of Williams College who was not involved in the research. “Both of [the teams] come at it from a different angle and almost end up in the same place, so they complement each other in that way, which is pretty ...
