POMC and Obesity: On the other hand, specific deletion of ERα in POMC neurons of the arcuate nucleus causes hyperphagia and obesity in female mice (Xu et al., 2011) and more recent studies suggest that specific subpopulations of POMC neurons may be integral to determining sex differences in energy balance (Hubbard et al., 2019; Quarta et al., 2021; Reilly et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2018).