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Cell Aug 2023Male sexual behavior is innate and rewarding. Despite its centrality to reproduction, a molecularly specified neural circuit governing innate male sexual behavior and...
Male sexual behavior is innate and rewarding. Despite its centrality to reproduction, a molecularly specified neural circuit governing innate male sexual behavior and reward remains to be characterized. We have discovered a developmentally wired neural circuit necessary and sufficient for male mating. This circuit connects chemosensory input to BNSTpr neurons, which innervate POA neurons that project to centers regulating motor output and reward. Epistasis studies demonstrate that BNSTpr neurons are upstream of POA neurons, and BNSTpr-released substance P following mate recognition potentiates activation of POA neurons through Tacr1 to initiate mating. Experimental activation of POA neurons triggers mating, even in sexually satiated males, and it is rewarding, eliciting dopamine release and self-stimulation of these cells. Together, we have uncovered a neural circuit that governs the key aspects of innate male sexual behavior: motor displays, drive, and reward.
Topics: Animals; Male; Neurons; Reward; Sexual Behavior, Animal; Mice; Neural Pathways
PubMed: 37572660
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.07.021 -
Current Obesity Reports Dec 2023This review examines lifestyle modification for obesity management with the goal of identifying treatment components that could support the use of a new generation of... (Review)
Review
PURPOSE OF REVIEW
This review examines lifestyle modification for obesity management with the goal of identifying treatment components that could support the use of a new generation of anti-obesity medications (AOMs).
RECENT FINDINGS
Semaglutide reliably reduces baseline body weight by approximately 15% at 68 weeks, in contrast to 5-10% for lifestyle modification. Tirzepatide induces mean losses as great as 20.9%. Both medications reduce energy intake by markedly enhancing satiation and decreasing hunger, and they appear to lessen the need for traditional cognitive and behavioral strategies (e.g., monitoring food intake) to achieve calorie restriction. Little, however, is known about whether patients who lose weight with these AOMs adopt healthy diet and activity patterns needed to optimize body composition, cardiometabolic health, and quality of life. When used with the new AOMs, the focus of lifestyle modification is likely to change from inducing weight loss (through calorie restriction) to facilitating patients' adoption of dietary and activity patterns that will promote optimal changes in body composition and overall health.
Topics: Humans; Obesity; Quality of Life; Exercise; Body Weight; Life Style; Anti-Obesity Agents
PubMed: 38041774
DOI: 10.1007/s13679-023-00534-z -
Nature Dec 2023The termination of a meal is controlled by dedicated neural circuits in the caudal brainstem. A key challenge is to understand how these circuits transform the sensory...
The termination of a meal is controlled by dedicated neural circuits in the caudal brainstem. A key challenge is to understand how these circuits transform the sensory signals generated during feeding into dynamic control of behaviour. The caudal nucleus of the solitary tract (cNTS) is the first site in the brain where many meal-related signals are sensed and integrated, but how the cNTS processes ingestive feedback during behaviour is unknown. Here we describe how prolactin-releasing hormone (PRLH) and GCG neurons, two principal cNTS cell types that promote non-aversive satiety, are regulated during ingestion. PRLH neurons showed sustained activation by visceral feedback when nutrients were infused into the stomach, but these sustained responses were substantially reduced during oral consumption. Instead, PRLH neurons shifted to a phasic activity pattern that was time-locked to ingestion and linked to the taste of food. Optogenetic manipulations revealed that PRLH neurons control the duration of seconds-timescale feeding bursts, revealing a mechanism by which orosensory signals feed back to restrain the pace of ingestion. By contrast, GCG neurons were activated by mechanical feedback from the gut, tracked the amount of food consumed and promoted satiety that lasted for tens of minutes. These findings reveal that sequential negative feedback signals from the mouth and gut engage distinct circuits in the caudal brainstem, which in turn control elements of feeding behaviour operating on short and long timescales.
Topics: Appetite Regulation; Brain Stem; Eating; Feedback, Physiological; Food; Neural Pathways; Neurons; Prolactin-Releasing Hormone; Satiation; Solitary Nucleus; Stomach; Taste; Time Factors; Animals; Mice
PubMed: 37993711
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06758-2 -
Complementary Therapies in Medicine Jun 2024Acupuncture stands out as a prominent complementary and alternative medicine therapy employed for functional dyspepsia (FD). We conducted a Bayesian meta-analysis to... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
BACKGROUND
Acupuncture stands out as a prominent complementary and alternative medicine therapy employed for functional dyspepsia (FD). We conducted a Bayesian meta-analysis to ascertain both the relative effectiveness and safety of various acupuncture methods in the treatment of functional dyspepsia.
METHODS
We systematically searched eight electronic databases, spanning from their inception to April 2023. The eligibility criteria included randomized controlled trials investigating acupuncture treatments for FD. Study appraisal was conducted using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Pairwise and network meta-analyses were conducted using RevMan 5.3 and ADDIS V.1.16.6 software. Bayesian network meta-analysis was performed to compare and rank the efficacy of different acupuncture therapies for FD symptoms.
RESULTS
This study found that combining different acupuncture methods or using acupuncture in conjunction with Western medicine is more effective in improving symptoms of functional dyspepsia compared to using Western medicine alone. According to the comprehensive analysis results, notably, the combination of Western medicine and acupuncture exhibited superior efficacy in alleviating early satiation and postprandial fullness symptoms. For ameliorating epigastric pain, acupuncture combined with moxibustion proved to be the most effective treatment, while moxibustion emerged as the optimal choice for addressing burning sensations. Warming needle was identified as the preferred method for promoting motilin levels.
CONCLUSION
The findings of this study demonstrate that acupuncture, both independently and in conjunction with other modalities, emerged as a secure and effective treatment option for patients with functional dyspepsia.
Topics: Humans; Dyspepsia; Acupuncture Therapy; Bayes Theorem; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
PubMed: 38761869
DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2024.103051 -
Cerebellum (London, England) Oct 2023Given the importance of the cerebellum in controlling movements, it might be expected that its main role in eating would be the control of motor elements such as chewing... (Review)
Review
Given the importance of the cerebellum in controlling movements, it might be expected that its main role in eating would be the control of motor elements such as chewing and swallowing. Whilst such functions are clearly important, there is more to eating than these actions, and more to the cerebellum than motor control. This review will present evidence that the cerebellum contributes to homeostatic, motor, rewarding and affective aspects of food consumption.Prediction and feedback underlie many elements of eating, as food consumption is influenced by expectation. For example, circadian clocks cause hunger in anticipation of a meal, and food consumption causes feedback signals which induce satiety. Similarly, the sight and smell of food generate an expectation of what that food will taste like, and its actual taste will generate an internal reward value which will be compared to that expectation. Cerebellar learning is widely thought to involve feed-forward predictions to compare expected outcomes to sensory feedback. We therefore propose that the overarching role of the cerebellum in eating is to respond to prediction errors arising across the homeostatic, motor, cognitive, and affective domains.
Topics: Feeding Behavior; Hunger; Satiation; Cerebellum; Learning; Eating
PubMed: 36121552
DOI: 10.1007/s12311-022-01476-3 -
Nutrients Jul 2023Obesity is a multifactorial disease that continues to increase in prevalence worldwide. Emerging evidence has shown that the development of obesity may be influenced by... (Review)
Review
Obesity is a multifactorial disease that continues to increase in prevalence worldwide. Emerging evidence has shown that the development of obesity may be influenced by taxonomic shifts in gut microbiota in response to the consumption of dietary fats. Further, these alterations in gut microbiota have been shown to promote important changes in satiation signals including gut hormones (leptin, ghrelin, GLP-1, peptide YY and CCK) and orexigenic and anorexigenic neuropeptides (AgRP, NPY, POMC, CART) that influence hyperphagia and therefore obesity. In this review, we highlight mechanisms by which gut microbiota can influence these satiation signals both locally in the gastrointestinal tract and via microbiota-gut-brain communication. Then, we describe the effects of dietary interventions and associated changes in gut microbiota on satiety signals through microbiota-dependent mechanisms. Lastly, we present microbiota optimizing therapies including prebiotics, probiotics, synbiotics and weight loss surgery that can help restore beneficial gut microbiota by enhancing satiety signals to reduce hyperphagia and subsequent obesity. Overall, a better understanding of the mechanisms by which dietary fats induce taxonomical shifts in gut microbiota and their impact on satiation signaling pathways will help develop more targeted therapeutic interventions in delaying the onset of obesity and in furthering its treatment.
Topics: Humans; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Dietary Fats; Obesity; Prebiotics; Probiotics; Eating; Hyperphagia
PubMed: 37571301
DOI: 10.3390/nu15153365 -
Nutrients Feb 2024Sugar consumption is known to be associated with a whole range of adverse health effects, including overweight status and type II diabetes mellitus. In 2015, the World... (Review)
Review
Sugar consumption is known to be associated with a whole range of adverse health effects, including overweight status and type II diabetes mellitus. In 2015, the World Health Organization issued a guideline recommending the reduction of sugar intake. In this context, alternative sweeteners have gained interest as sugar substitutes to achieve this goal without loss of the sweet taste. This review aims to provide an overview of the scientific literature and establish a reference tool for selected conventional sweeteners (sucrose, glucose, and fructose) and alternative sweeteners (sucralose, xylitol, erythritol, and D-allulose), specifically focusing on their important metabolic effects. The results show that alternative sweeteners constitute a diverse group, and each substance exhibits one or more metabolic effects. Therefore, no sweetener can be considered to be inert. Additionally, xylitol, erythritol, and D-allulose seem promising as alternative sweeteners due to favorable metabolic outcomes. These alternative sweeteners replicate the benefits of sugars (e.g., sweetness and gastrointestinal hormone release) while circumventing the detrimental effects of these substances on human health.
Topics: Humans; Sweetening Agents; Xylitol; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2; Sugars; Erythritol
PubMed: 38474749
DOI: 10.3390/nu16050622 -
Microbiome Aug 2023Upper small intestinal dietary lipids activate a gut-brain axis regulating energy homeostasis. The prebiotic, oligofructose (OFS) improves body weight and adiposity...
BACKGROUND
Upper small intestinal dietary lipids activate a gut-brain axis regulating energy homeostasis. The prebiotic, oligofructose (OFS) improves body weight and adiposity during metabolic dysregulation but the exact mechanisms remain unknown. This study examines whether alterations to the small intestinal microbiota following OFS treatment improve small intestinal lipid-sensing to regulate food intake in high fat (HF)-fed rats.
RESULTS
In rats fed a HF diet for 4 weeks, OFS supplementation decreased food intake and meal size within 2 days, and reduced body weight and adiposity after 6 weeks. Acute (3 day) OFS treatment restored small intestinal lipid-induced satiation during HF-feeding, and was associated with increased small intestinal CD36 expression, portal GLP-1 levels and hindbrain neuronal activation following a small intestinal lipid infusion. Transplant of the small intestinal microbiota from acute OFS treated donors into HF-fed rats also restored lipid-sensing mechanisms to lower food intake. 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed that both long and short-term OFS altered the small intestinal microbiota, increasing Bifidobacterium relative abundance. Small intestinal administration of Bifidobacterium pseudolongum to HF-fed rats improved small intestinal lipid-sensing to decrease food intake.
CONCLUSION
OFS supplementation rapidly modulates the small intestinal gut microbiota, which mediates improvements in small intestinal lipid sensing mechanisms that control food intake to improve energy homeostasis. Video Abstract.
Topics: Rats; Animals; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; Obesity; Body Weight; Dietary Fats; Diet, High-Fat
PubMed: 37533066
DOI: 10.1186/s40168-023-01590-2 -
Belitung Nursing Journal 2023Preterm infants display certain behaviors to communicate their needs, known as preterm infant cues. However, the existing research on preterm infant cues primarily draws... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
Preterm infants display certain behaviors to communicate their needs, known as preterm infant cues. However, the existing research on preterm infant cues primarily draws from studies conducted on bottle-fed infants rather than breastfed infants.
OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to investigate the concept of preterm infant cues during breastfeeding and its appropriate instruments.
DESIGN
A scoping review.
DATA SOURCES
The articles published up to January 2022 were searched from multiple sources from EBSCOhost Web, namely CINAHL Plus with Full Text, MEDLINE, ERIC, and E-Journals.
REVIEW METHODS
The articles retrieved for this review were screened using PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcomes) format. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) checklist was used in selecting the articles, and Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal was utilized by two independent authors to assess the articles' quality. A descriptive method was used to analyze the data.
RESULTS
The initial review stage found 183 potential articles, but only four satisfied the criteria. The notion of preterm infant cues during breastfeeding is centered on the actions of preterm infants while positioned on their mother's chest. These feeding cues are identifiable before, during, and after breastfeeding and include cues for hunger, self-regulation, stress, satiation, approach, avoidance, and sucking quality. To effectively recognize these cues, tools such as the Preterm Infants Cues Coding System (PFCCS), Infant Driven Scale (IDS), Newborn Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program (NIDCAP), and Preterm Breastfeeding Behavior Scale (PIBBS) can be utilized.
CONCLUSION
The study findings highlight the importance of recognizing preterm infant cues during breastfeeding to facilitate proper feeding and developmental care. Observational studies have proven to be an effective means of observing these cues during breastfeeding. By leveraging the cues identified in this review alongside tools such as PFCCS, IDS, NIDCAP, and PIBBS, nurses can accurately interpret preterm infants' breastfeeding cues in neonatal care settings of all levels. This, in turn, can aid in developing care plans that promote better feeding ability outcomes.
PubMed: 37492760
DOI: 10.33546/bnj.2445