Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research and Harvard Medical School have now shown in mice that the communication in the brain changes during a diet: the nerve cells that mediate the feeling of hunger receive stronger signals, so that the mice Eat significantly more after आहार and gain weight more quickly. In the long term, these findings may help develop drugs to block this amplification and help maintain low body weight after dieting.
“People have mainly looked at the short-term effects of dieting. We wanted to see what changes happen in the brain over the long term,” explains Henning Fenslau, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research who led the study. To this end, the researchers put the mice on a diet and assessed which circuits in the brain changed. Specifically, they examined a group of neurons in the hypothalamus, AGRP neurons, which are known to control the feeling of hunger.
They were able to show that the neuronal pathways that excite AgRP neurons send enhanced signals when the mice are on the diet. This profound change in the brain can be detected long after the diet.
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Blocking the yo-yo effect: The researchers were also able to selectively inhibit the neural pathways in mice that activate AGRP neurons. This led to a significant reduction in weight after the diet. “It may give us an opportunity to reduce the yo-yo effect,” says Fancelou.
“In the long term, our goal is to find therapies for humans that can help maintain body weight loss after dieting. To achieve this, we continue to find out whether we can identify those mechanisms.” can block how the neural pathways mediate strengthening in humans.”
“This work advances the understanding of how neural wiring diagrams regulate appetite. We previously uncovered a key set of upstream neurons that AgRP physically synapses on and excites appetite neurons. Our In the current study, we find that the physical neurotransmitter connections between these two neurons, in a process called synaptic plasticity, are greatly increased with dieting and weight loss, and this leads to long-lasting extreme hunger.” Commented co-author Bradford Lowell of Harvard Medical School.