Parasympathethic effects on diet-induced thermogenesis

Abstract Injection of atropine methyl nitrate or atropine sulphate enhanced the acute thermogenic response to food in rats. The main effector of diet-induced thermogenesis is brown adipose tissue (BAT), but acetylcholine (determined by bioassay) and acetylcholinesterase activity (determined histochemically) were not detected in BAT. This suggests that BAT has no parasympathetic innervation, and atropine must therefore act elsewhere to affect thermogenesis.