Introducing the brain: cerebellar appetite control (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 09, 2022, 20:35 (780 days ago) @ David Turell

Recently found:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-brain-curbs-overeating/

"Chen and his team noticed they could make mice stop eating by activating small pockets of neurons in regions known as the anterior deep cerebellar nuclei (aDCN), within the cerebellum. Intrigued, the researchers contacted collaborators at Harvard Medical School. Scientists there had gathered data using functional MRI to compare brain activity in 14 people who had Prader-Willi syndrome with activity in 14 unaffected people while each subject viewed images of food—either immediately following a meal or after fasting for at least four hours.

"New analysis of these scans revealed that activity in the same regions Chen’s group had pinpointed in mice, the aDCN, appeared to be significantly disrupted in humans with Prader-Willi syndrome. In healthy individuals, the aDCN were more active in response to food images while fasting than just after a meal, but no such difference was identifiable in participants with the disorder. The result suggested that the aDCN were involved in controlling hunger. Further experiments on mice, conducted by researchers from several different institutions, demonstrated that activating the animals’ aDCN neurons dramatically reduced food intake by blunting how the brain’s pleasure center responds to food. The findings were recently detailed in Nature.

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"Multiple colleagues of Chen’s are now planning to test whether they can manipulate this circuit in healthy people by using a noninvasive intervention known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. If that is successful, Chen says, the researchers hope to eventually conduct a clinical trial."

Comment: appetite control was thought to be in the hypothalamus, so this is a big change.