Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Sympathetic innervation

Heterogeneous sympathetic control of brown adipose tissue

In this issue of Nature Metabolism, Neri et al. show that two distinct stellate ganglion subcircuits innervating interscapular brown adipose tissue (iBAT) separately control thermogenesis and glucose tolerance, providing a mechanistic explanation for temperature-independent benefits of iBAT on glycaemia.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Parallel sympathetic lines to iBAT and their distinct outputs.

References

  1. Olsen, J. M. et al. Mol. Metab. 6, 611–619 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Weir, G. et al. Cell Metab. 27, 1348–1355 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Blondin, D. P. et al. Diabetes 64, 2388–2397 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Gibbins, I. L. J. Auton. Nerv. Syst. 34, 171–183 (1991).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Zhu, Y. et al. Nature 634, 243–250 (2024).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Neri, D. et al. Nat. Metab. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-025-01429-0 (2026).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Wang, T. et al. Nature 637, 895–902 (2025).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from the US National Institutes of Health, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Li Ye.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Huang, X., Ye, L. Heterogeneous sympathetic control of brown adipose tissue. Nat Metab (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-025-01435-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Version of record:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-025-01435-2

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing