{"id":97991,"date":"2025-08-10T05:34:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T05:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/10\/scientists-find-brain-cell-switch-that-could-reverse-obesitys-effects\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T05:34:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T05:34:31","slug":"scientists-find-brain-cell-switch-that-could-reverse-obesitys-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/10\/scientists-find-brain-cell-switch-that-could-reverse-obesitys-effects\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists find brain cell switch that could reverse obesity\u2019s effects"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"story_text\">\n<div id=\"featured\">\n<figure class=\"mainimg\">\n<img fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/images\/1920\/obesity-and-brain.webp\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/images\/600\/obesity-and-brain.webp 600w, &#10; https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/images\/1200\/obesity-and-brain.webp 1200w, &#10; https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/images\/1920\/obesity-and-brain.webp 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, &#10; (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, &#10; 100vw\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" alt=\"Brain Switch That Could Reverse Obesity\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" loading=\"eager\"\/><figcaption>Researchers show astrocytes can be tuned to reverse some obesity-driven brain and metabolic changes, revealing untapped therapeutic potential. Credit: Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"first\" class=\"lead\">Fatty diets and obesity affect the structure and function of astrocytes<sup>1<\/sup>, the star-shaped brain cells located in the striatum, a brain region involved in the perception of pleasure generated by food consumption. What is even more surprising is that by manipulating these astrocytes <em>in vivo<\/em> in mice can influence metabolism and correct certain cognitive changes associated with obesity (ability to relearn a task, for example). These results, described by scientists from the CNRS<sup>2<\/sup> and the Universit\u00e9 Paris Cit\u00e9, were recently published in the journal <em>Nature Communication<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"text\">\n<p>These discoveries reinforce the idea that astrocytes (long neglected in favour of neurons) play a key role in brain function. They also demonstrate, for the first time, the ability of astrocytes to restore cognitive function in the context of obesity, opening up new avenues of research to identify their exact role in energy metabolism.<\/p>\n<p>These conclusions were reached using a combination of <em>ex vivo<\/em> and <em>in vivo<\/em> approaches in rodents, including chemogenetic techniques<sup>3<\/sup>, brain imaging, locomotion tests, cognitive behaviour and measuring the body&#8217;s energy metabolism.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Unlike neurons, astrocytes (nervous system cells) do not generate electrical activity, which has made them less easy to study in the past. However, thanks to improvements in observation techniques, we now know that their close cooperation with neurons is essential to the proper functioning of the nervous system.<\/li>\n<li>Reporting to l&#8217;Unit\u00e9 de biologie fonctionnelle et adaptative (CNRS\/Universit\u00e9 Paris Cit\u00e9). Scientists from l&#8217;Institut de biologie Paris-Seine (CNRS\/Inserm\/Sorbonne Universit\u00e9) were also involved.<\/li>\n<li>Calcium is an essential chemical element for astrocyte function, enabling synaptic activity to be modulated. The chemogenetic technique employed was based on the use of a virus, to express, in a targeted manner in the astrocytes, a protein that could modulate calcium flow in the cell, rather like a switch. The scientists were thus able to study the effect of these calcium flows on the activity of the astrocytes and surrounding neurons.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2025\/08\/250807233048.htm\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers show astrocytes can be tuned to reverse some obesity-driven brain and metabolic changes, revealing untapped therapeutic potential. Credit: Shutterstock Fatty diets and obesity affect<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}