Cellular components that are responsible for triggering eating disorders have been discovered by scientists. The finding lends insight into a cause for obesity and could lead to treatments for anorexia, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.
Senior study author Garret Stuber, PhD, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and department of cell biology and physiology, said that the study underscores that obesity and other eating disorders have a neurological basis.
Stuber focused on one cell type-gaba neurons in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, or BNST, which is an outcropping of the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with emotion.
The BNST also forms a bridge between the amygdala and the lateral hypothalamus, the brain region that drives primal functions like eating, sexual behaviour, and aggression.
The BNST gaba neurons have a cell body and a long strand with branched synapses that transmit electrical signals into the lateral hypothalamus.
Stuber and his team wanted to stimulate those synapses by using an optogenetic technique, an involved process that would let him stimulate BNST cells simply by shining light on their synapses.
Advertisement
His team then implanted fiber optic cables in the brains of these specially-bred mice, and this allowed the researchers to shine light through the cables and onto BNST synapses.
Advertisement
The study has been published in the journal Science.
Source-ANI