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posted by mrpg on Monday November 22 2021, @01:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-enough dept.

In the brain’s cerebellum, a new target for suppressing hunger:

People with Prader Willi syndrome, a genetic disorder, have an insatiable appetite. They never feel full, even after a hearty meal. The result can be life-threatening overeating and obesity.

According to a new study, their constant hunger results in part to disordered signaling in the brain’s cerebellum, a region of the brain also responsible for motor control and learning. An international research team spanning 12 institutions, led by J. Nicholas Betley, an assistant professor of biology in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, and Albert I. Chen, an associate professor at the Scintillion Institute, in San Diego, used clues from Prader Willi patients to guide investigations in mice that uncovered a subset of cerebellar neurons that signals satiation after eating.

When the researchers activated these neurons, the magnitude of the effect "was enormous," accordingly to Betley. The animals ate just as often as typical mice, but each of their meals was 50-75% smaller.

[...] "It's amazing that you can still find areas of the brain that are important for basic survival behaviors that we had never before implicated," Betley says. "And these brain regions are important in robust ways."

Journal Reference:
Aloysius Y. T. Low, Nitsan Goldstein, Jessica R. Gaunt, et al. Reverse-translational identification of a cerebellar satiation network, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04143-5)


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  • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday November 22 2021, @09:49PM (1 child)

    by acid andy (1683) on Monday November 22 2021, @09:49PM (#1198695) Homepage Journal

    I don't know if that really answers your question.

    I think so. I wasn't really looking for any particular kind of answer. I just found it an interesting talking point.

    I played logic games. [...] I mostly have entertained myself with computer languages

    Yes you may agree that programming is one of the best, most fun, logic games.

    Personally, I do enjoy the eye candy of modern games but I must admit I do start to feel that many games are too much about consuming rather than creating. I like to create interesting, meaningful stuff.

    One area I think some of the games do excel though, even over something like programming, is satisfying feelings of competitiveness. For example, I particularly enjoy realistic driving games. The intense concentration involved is strangely rewarding as well.

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 22 2021, @10:48PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 22 2021, @10:48PM (#1198726) Journal

    For example, I particularly enjoy realistic driving games.

    A former coworker was into that. He had quite a rig hooked up to his PC. Three monitors. A drivers seat. Steering wheel. Various displays, lights, buttons and controls operated by microcontrollers -- and connected in to the game! These things gave him an edge.

    The whole rig was one giant piece made of wood, with place for the PC and everything all wired up.

    He would bring it into the office on some Saturdays when there was some kind of big competition. Our small office internet is vastly superior to any residential internet I've ever seen ever. It is fiber to a "drain" a couple states away, connected to the corporate backbone.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.