🧵9/ Most strikingly: providing artificial insulation (like a fleece shelter) partially restored NMRs’ thermoregulation. Insulated NMRs maintained higher body temperatures, needed less food/fat to do so, and displayed more “homeothermic” curves. Fur matters! #Adaptation

🧵8/ We tested if "fuel" was limiting by supplementing lipids. This helped NMRs keep body temp higher during cold—suggesting substrate availability is important, but not the whole story. #lipolysis

🧵6/ When we gave NMRs a β3-adrenergic agonist (mimicking cold responses), they cranked up their metabolism and increased core temp—sometimes even more so than mice. The machinery works. So why don’t NMRs defend stable body temperatures? #Metabolism

🧵5/ We compared them to mice. First surprise: NMRs have fully functional UCP1 (the protein at the heart of mammalian brown fat thermogenesis). Both in vitro and in vivo, their UCP1 acts like the mouse version—activatable and inhibitable, fueling heat production in response to cold! 🔥

🧵2/ The NMR challenges mammalian rules of body temperature maintenance. NMRs are sometimes called a poikilotherm, homeotherm, mesotherm, or heterotherm. We sought to resolve this long-standing controversy by systematically probing their heat-generation and retention abilities.

🧵1/15 Delighted to share our study on the naked mole-rat (NMR): a mammal with bizarre thermal biology, notorious longevity, and cancer resistance. But how do NMRs maintain (or fail to maintain) their body temperature? Our latest work digs deep! #ThermalBiology #Thermogenesis

🧪#metabosky #calorimetry
The world of indirect calorimetry just got better. Our team is nearly ready to launch a new version of CalR. A beta version of CalR2 is available at CalRapp.org. New features include improved visualizations, quality control analysis, statistical power calcs and more. ✔️it out

In-person today at 3pm: First ever joint BIDMC and Joslin Diabetes Center event for #WorldDiabetesDay2023