Neurons of gluttony
Neurons promoting overeating have been found
Alexey Yevglevsky, Naked Science
Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conducted experiments on mice and showed that inhibiting one protein can reduce overeating. The work was published in the journal Neuron (Hardaway et al., Central Amygdala Prepronociceptin-Expressing Neurons Mediate Palatable Food Consumption and Reward).
Earlier, scientists from the University of Cambridge compared the genes of one and a half thousand thin people with the genes of almost two thousand of those who are overweight. They noticed that the assessment of genetic risk was lower in the thin, and pointed to loci that were associated with an increased risk of weight gain. Now, American biologists have conducted experiments with mice to see how the brain controls food intake.
"Hunger is important for the body, but there are other circuits in the brain that are less related to hunger and more to the taste of food. High—calorie food can potentially cause overeating even when the brain says that hunger is satisfied," said Thomas Kash, one of the authors of the article.
Scientists have bred mice whose brains produce a fluorescent molecule after eating. They monitored how this molecule spreads along the neural pathways when eating regular and high-calorie foods. In the latter case, the connection of neurons is different compared to the first. The cycle starts, which in the central part of the amygdala affects the area of emotion processing. Prepronociceptin-expressing cells produce a protein called nociceptin, which is an opioid-bound peptide, but does not act on classical opioid receptors.
Schematic representation of the difference in brain function when eating different foods / ©Neuron.
Neurophysiologists performed chemogenetic inhibition of these cells and observed how this would affect the behavior of rodents. They stopped overeating, at the same time their body weight decreased. This method of exposure in the future can be used to reduce excess weight in people.
Recently, Dutch scientists have confirmed that additional percentages of body fat are associated with a decrease in the volume of gray matter in the brain. They made these conclusions based on a study involving twelve thousand volunteers aged 45 to 76 years.
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