British neuroscientists from University College London examined how the hunger hormone produced in the intestines affects the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for decision-making. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Neuron.
In the experiment, scientists placed mice in an area with little food and looked at how the mice behaved when they were hungry or full and imaged their brains in real time to study neural activity. All the mice spent time exploring the food, but then only the hungry rodents started eating.
The researchers found that as the animals approached food, activity in a subset of brain cells in the ventral (lower) part of the hippocampus increased, and this activity prevented the animal from eating.
But if the mouse was hungry, there was less neural activity in that area, so the hippocampus no longer prevented the animal from eating. Researchers found that this corresponded to high levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin circulating in the blood.
Neuroscientists were then able to encourage hungry animals to reject food by activating ventral hippocampal neurons. The result was replicated in another way by removing the ghrelin-responsive receptors from the neurons.
The researchers hope that their discovery will contribute to the study of the mechanisms of eating disorders and help understand whether ghrelin receptors in the hippocampus are involved in them.
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