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Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA)
have made a discovery in neuroscience that could
offer a long-lasting solution to eating disorders
such as obesity.
It was previously thought that the nerve cells in
the brain associated with appetite regulation were
generated entirely during an embryo’s development in
the womb and therefore their numbers were fixed for
life.
But research published today in the Journal of
Neuroscience has identified a population of stem
cells capable of generating new appetite-regulating
neurons in the brains of young and adult rodents.
Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally.
More than 1.4 billion adults worldwide are
overweight and more than half a billion are obese.
Associated health problems include type 2 diabetes,
heart disease, arthritis and cancer. And at least
2.8 million people die each year as a result of
being overweight or obese.
The economic burden on the NHS in the UK is
estimated to be more than £5 billion annually. In
the US, the healthcare cost tops $60 billion.
Scientists at UEA investigated the hypothalamus
section of the brain – which regulates sleep and
wake cycles, energy expenditure, appetite, thirst,
hormone release and many other critical biological
functions. The study looked specifically at the
nerve cells that regulate appetite.
The researchers used ‘genetic fate mapping’
techniques to make their discovery – a method that
tracks the development of stem cells and cells
derived from them, at desired time points during the
life of an animal.
They established that a population of brain cells
called ‘tanycytes’ behave like stem cells and add
new neurons to the appetite-regulating circuitry of
the mouse brain after birth and into adulthood.
Lead researcher Dr Mohammad K. Hajihosseini, from
UEA’s school of Biological Sciences, said: “Unlike
dieting, translation of this discovery could
eventually offer a permanent solution for tackling
obesity.
“Loss or malfunctioning of neurons in the
hypothalamus is the prime cause of eating disorders
such as obesity.
“Until recently we thought that all of these nerve
cells were generated during the embryonic period and
so the circuitry that controls appetite was fixed.
“But this study has shown that the neural circuitry
that controls appetite is not fixed in number and
could possibly be manipulated numerically to tackle
eating disorders.
“The next step is to define the group of genes and
cellular processes that regulate the behaviour and
activity of tanycytes. This information will further
our understanding of brain stem cells and could be
exploited to develop drugs that can modulate the
number or functioning of appetite-regulating neurons.
“Our long-term goal of course is to translate this
work to humans, which could take up to five or 10
years. It could lead to a permanent intervention in
infancy for those predisposed to obesity, or later
in life as the disease becomes apparent.”
The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust.
For more information
‘Fgf10-expressing tanycytes add new neurons to the
appetite/energy-balance regulating centres of the
postnatal and adult hypothalamus’ by Niels Haan,
Mohammad Hajihosseini, Timothy Goodman, Alaleh
Najdi-Samiei and Christina Stratford (all UEA),
Ritva Rice (University of Helsinki), Elie El Agha
and Saverio Bellusci (both University of Giessen) is
published by the Journal of Neuroscience.
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/14/6170.abstract?sid=8ce7b7a1-a7c2-492b-8312-2e71002e7b5f
(MDN)
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