PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Once bitten, twice shy: the neurology of why one bad curry could put us off for life

Scientists explore what happens in the brain when we have bad experiences with food

2021-02-11
(Press-News.org) A negative experience with food usually leaves us unable to stomach the thought of eating that particular dish again. Using sugar-loving snails as models, researchers at the University of Sussex believe these bad experiences could be causing a switch in our brains, which impacts our future eating habits.

Like many other animals, snails like sugar and usually start feeding on it as soon as it is presented to them. But through aversive training which involved tapping the snails gently on the head when sugar appeared, the snails' behaviour was altered and they refused to feed on the sugar, even when hungry.

When the team of Sussex Neuroscience researchers led by Dr Ildiko Kemenes looked a little closer, they discovered a neuronal mechanism that effectively reversed the snails' usual response to sugar after the conditioning training had taken place.

Dr Ildiko Kemenes, Reader in Neuroscience in the University of Sussex's School of Life Sciences, explained: "There's a neuron in the snail's brain which normally suppresses the feeding circuit. This is important, as the network is prone to becoming spontaneously activated, even in the absence of any food. By suppressing the feeding circuit, it ensures that the snail doesn't just eat everything and anything. But when sugar or other food stimulus is present, this neuron becomes inhibited so that feeding can commence.

"After the aversive training, we found that this neuron reverses its electrical response to sugar and becomes excited instead of inhibited by it. Effectively, a switch has been flipped in the brain which means the snail no longer eats the sugar when presented with it, because sugar now suppresses rather than activates feeding."

When researchers presented the trained snails with a piece of cucumber instead, they found that the animal was still happy to eat the healthy option - showing that the taps were associated with only the particular type of food they were trained to reject.

George Kemenes, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and a senior member of the investigator team, added: "Snails provide us with a similar yet exceptionally basic model of how human brains work.

"The effect of the inhibitory neuron which suppresses the feeding circuit in the snail is quite similar to how, in the human brain, cortical networks are under inhibitory control to avoid 'runaway' activation which may lead to overeating resulting in obesity.

"In our research, the negative experience the snail had with the sugar could be likened to eating a bad takeaway curry which then puts us off that particular dish in future.

"We believe that in a human brain, a similar switch could be happening where particular groups of neurons reverse their activity in line with the negative association of a particular food. "

The research, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and published in Current Biology, also revealed that when the neuron was removed entirely from trained snails, they returned to eating sugar again.

Dr Ildiko Kemenes said: "This suggests that the neuron is necessary for the expression of the learned behaviour and for altering the response to sugar.

"However, we cannot rule out that the sugar-activated sensory pathway also undergoes some changes, so we don't make the assumption that this is all that's happening in the brain."

INFORMATION:



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Climate research: rapid formation of iodic particles over the Arctic

2021-02-11
FRANKFURT. More than two thirds of the earth is covered by clouds. Depending on whether they float high or low, how large their water and ice content is, how thick they are or over which region of the Earth they form, it gets warmer or cooler underneath them. Due to human influence, there are most likely more cooling effects from clouds today than in pre-industrial times, but how clouds contribute to climate change is not yet well understood. Researchers currently believe that low clouds over the Arctic and Antarctic, for example, contribute to the warming of these regions by blocking the direct radiation of long-wave heat from the Earth's surface. All ...

Low-income middle-aged African-American women with hypertension are likely to suffer from depression

2021-02-11
Low-income middle-aged African-American women with high blood pressure very commonly suffer from depression and should be better screened for this serious mental health condition, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The researchers found that in a sample of over 300 low-income, African-American women, aged 40-75, with uncontrolled hypertension, nearly 60 percent screened positively for a diagnosis of depression based on a standard clinical questionnaire about depressive symptoms. The results appeared February 10 in JAMA Psychiatry. "Our findings suggest that low-income, middle-aged African-American women with hypertension really should be screened for depression symptoms," ...

Patient education program with mental health component reduces cardiovascular disease risks

Patient education program with mental health component reduces cardiovascular disease risks
2021-02-11
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- People who participated in a health education program that included both mental health and physical health information significantly reduced their risks of cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases by the end of the 12-month intervention - and sustained most of those improvements six months later, researchers found. People who participated in the integrated mental and physical health program maintained significant improvements on seven of nine health measures six months after the program's conclusion. These included, on average, a 21% ...

New study reveals biodiversity important at regional scales

New study reveals biodiversity important at regional scales
2021-02-11
New research shows that biodiversity is important not just at the traditional scale of short-term plot experiments--in which ecologists monitor the health of a single meadow, forest grove, or pond after manipulating its species counts--but when measured over decades and across regional landscapes as well. The findings can help guide conservation planning and enhance efforts to make human communities more sustainable. Published in a recent issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, the multi-institutional study was led by Dr. Christopher Patrick ...

Use of mobile stroke units improves clinical outcomes

Use of mobile stroke units improves clinical outcomes
2021-02-11
STEMOs (Stroke-Einsatz-Mobile) have been serving Berlin for ten years. The specialized stroke emergency response vehicles allow physicians to start treating stroke patients before they reach hospital. For the first time, a team of researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin has been able to show that the dispatch of mobile stroke units is linked to improved clinical outcomes. The researchers' findings, which show that patients for whom STEMOs were dispatched were more likely to survive without long-term disability, have been published in JAMA*. The phrase 'time is brain' emphasizes a fundamental principle from emergency medicine, namely that after stroke, every minute counts. Without ...

Astronomers confirm solar system's most distant known object is indeed Farfarout

Astronomers confirm solar systems most distant known object is indeed Farfarout
2021-02-11
With the help of the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF's NOIRLab, and other ground-based telescopes, astronomers have confirmed that a faint object discovered in 2018 and nicknamed "Farfarout" is indeed the most distant object yet found in our Solar System. The object has just received its designation from the International Astronomical Union. Farfarout was first spotted in January 2018 by the Subaru Telescope, located on Maunakea in Hawai'i. Its discoverers could tell it was very far away, but they weren't sure exactly how far. They needed more observations. "At that time we did not know the object's orbit as we only had the Subaru discovery observations over 24 hours, but it takes years of ...

Experts' top COVID mitigation action: Nat'l stay at home order with financial compensation

2021-02-11
A report summary released today by a team at Lehigh University led by Thomas McAndrew , a computational scientist and assistant professor in Lehigh's College of Health, shares the consensus results of experts in the modeling of infectious disease when asked to rank the top 5 most effective interventions to mitigate the spread and impact of COVID-19 in the U.S. The report is part of an ongoing meta forecasting project aimed at translating forecasting and real world experience into actions. McAndrew and his colleagues wanted to answer "Here is where ...

Affordable CRISPR app reveals unintended mutations at site of CRISPR gene repair

2021-02-11
Wilmington, DE, Feb. 11, 2020 -Scientists have developed an affordable, downloadable app that scans for potential unintended mistakes when CRISPR is used to repair mutations that cause disease. The app reveals potentially risky DNA alterations that could impede efforts to safely use CRISPR to correct mutations in conditions like sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis. The development of the new tool, called DECODR (which stands for Deconvolution of Complex DNA Repair), was reported today in The CRISPR Journal by researchers from ChristianaCare's Gene Editing Institute.  "Our research has shown that when CRISPR is used to repair a gene, it also can introduce a variety of subtle changes to DNA near the site of the repair," said Eric ...

Insights into the role of DNA repair and Huntington's disease gene mutation open new avenues for drug discovery

Insights into the role of DNA repair and Huntingtons disease gene mutation open new avenues for drug discovery
2021-02-11
Amsterdam, February 11, 2021 - Recent genetic data from patients with Huntington's disease (HD) show that DNA repair is an important factor that determines how early or late the disease occurs in individuals who carry the expanded CAG repeat in the HTT gene that causes HD. The processes of DNA repair further expand the CAG repeats in HTT in the brain implicated in pathogenesis and disease progression. This special issue of the Journal of Huntington's Disease (JHD) is a compendium of new reviews on topics ranging from the discovery of somatic CAG repeat expansion in HD, to our current understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved ...

A new way of forming planets

A new way of forming planets
2021-02-11
In the last 25 years, scientists have discovered over 4000 planets beyond the borders of our solar system. From relatively small rock and water worlds to blisteringly hot gas giants, the planets display a remarkable variety. This variety is not unexpected. The sophisticated computer models, with which scientists study the formation of planets, also spawn very different planets. What the models have more difficulty to explain is the observed mass distribution of the planets discovered around other stars. The majority have fallen into the intermediate mass category - planets with masses of several Earth masses to around that of Neptune. Even in ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Thirty-year mystery of dissonance in the “ringing” of black holes explained

Less intensive works best for agricultural soil

Arctic rivers project receives “national champion” designation from frontiers foundation

Computational biology paves the way for new ALS tests

Study offers new hope for babies born with opioid withdrawal syndrome

UT, Volkswagen Group of America celebrate research partnership

New Medicare program could dramatically improve affordability for cancer drugs – if patients enroll

Are ‘zombie’ skin cells harmful or helpful? The answer may be in their shapes

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center presents research at AACR 2025

Head and neck, breast, lung and survivorship studies headline Dana-Farber research at AACR Annual Meeting 2025

AACR: Researchers share promising results from MD Anderson clinical trials

New research explains why our waistlines expand in middle age

Advancements in muon detection: Taishan Antineutrino Observatory's innovative top veto tracker

Chips off the old block

Microvascular decompression combined with nerve combing for atypical trigeminal neuralgia

Cutting the complexity from digital carpentry

Lung immune cell type “quietly” controls inflammation in COVID-19

Fiscal impact of expanded Medicare coverage for GLP-1 receptor agonists to treat obesity

State and sociodemographic trends in US cigarette smoking with future projections

Young adults drive historic decline in smoking

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Chimpanzee stem cells offer new insights into early embryonic development

This injected protein-like polymer helps tissues heal after a heart attack

FlexTech inaugural issue launches, pioneering interdisciplinary innovation in flexible technology

In Down syndrome mice, 40Hz light and sound improve cognition, neurogenesis, connectivity

Methyl eugenol: potential to inhibit oxidative stress, address related diseases, and its toxicological effects

A vascularized multilayer chip reveals shear stress-induced angiogenesis in diverse fluid conditions

AI helps unravel a cause of Alzheimer's disease and identify a therapeutic candidate

Coalition of Autism Scientists critiques US Department of Health and Human Services Autism Research Initiative

Structure dictates effectiveness, safety in nanomedicine

[Press-News.org] Once bitten, twice shy: the neurology of why one bad curry could put us off for life
Scientists explore what happens in the brain when we have bad experiences with food