When we eat, four groups of neurons in the brain work in sequence, like a relay.
In order for animals to survive, they need to eat regularly to replenish their energy. If they stop eating as soon as the initial feeling of hunger subsides, they will not have enough energy to meet their needs, so they need to continue eating until the appropriate time. Until now, it was unclear how the brain controls the duration of this meal, so a German research team investigated what happens in the brain during meals.
Sequential activation of lateral hypothalamic neuronal populations during feeding and their assembly by gamma oscillations | Journal of Neuroscience
Brain divides meal into different phases | FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
https://www.fau.eu/2024/09/17/news/brain-divides-meal-into-different-phases/
Mouse Experiment Reveals Brains Divide Meal Time Into Four Stages : ScienceAlert
The study was conducted by a research team from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) and the University Hospital Cologne in Germany. Professor Alexei Ponomarenko of FAU, who led the team, said, 'We know very little about how the brain controls the duration of the 'satiety period.' In order to get the right amount of energy, it has to be neither too long nor too short.'
The team used artificial intelligence techniques to analyze electrical activity in specific areas of the hypothalamus in mice, which has a structure similar to that of the human hypothalamus. 'This allows us to determine which neurons 'fire', or generate electrical impulses, at specific times during food intake,' said Mahsa Altafi, co-first author of the study.
The analysis confirmed that eating sequentially activates four different groups of neurons.
'The groups of neurons work like relay runners, working together to take part in different phases of a race,' says Professor Ponomarenko. 'Depending on our blood sugar levels, the levels of hunger hormones, and how full we are, the hypothalamus makes sure we don't eat too little or too much.'
The team also investigated how neurons within each group communicated with each other.
It is known that nerve cells have a rhythm of activity, sometimes 'firing' actively and sometimes 'not firing', and the state switches regularly, sometimes 'firing' dozens of times per second. In order to communicate, they must fire at the same rhythm, but according to the research, it was found that the group of neurons involved in food intake all fire at the same rhythm, while neurons not involved in food intake tend to fire at different rhythms. For this reason, it seems that it is easy to end the eating process at the right time by exchanging information only with neurons related to eating.
These findings also suggest that influencing neuronal firing, for example by using external magnetic field oscillations, could help alleviate eating disorders by improving communication between groups of neurons involved in eating.
'In mice, the oscillatory behavior of neurons can be more directly influenced by optogenetic manipulation, so we plan follow-up studies to examine how this affects feeding behavior,' said Professor Ponomarenko.
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