Can a drug hibernate you? 1. What is actually hibernation state? --Hibernation is identified by a prolonged state of energy conservation, termed torpor, that allows heterothermic mammals to tolerate the limited resource availability encountered in extreme environments . Animal studies: In hypothalamus , a particular group of neurons controls all metabolic activity. When it was blocked... --mice began to enter torpor, the team focused on a gene called Fos -- previously shown by the Greenberg lab to be expressed in active neurons. Labeling the protein product of the Fos gene allowed them to identify which neurons are activated during the transition to torpor throughout the entire brain --Studying torpor in mice helps us understand how this fascinating feature of warm-blooded animals might be manipulated through neural processes.confirm that these neurons are critical for torpor, the researchers used a separate virus-based tool to silence the activity of avMLPA-Vglut2 neurons. This imply ...