INFORMATION:
A receptor that controls appetite presents a target for anorexia, suggests mouse study
2021-04-21
(Press-News.org) By targeting a receptor in the brains of mice, researchers have successfully altered feeding and anxiety-like behaviors linked to anorexia. Although more work is needed in humans, their study suggests that fine-tuning the receptor's activity could help change feeding habits and promote weight gain in patients with eating disorders. Anorexia and other eating disorders affect at least 28 million Americans and cause more than 10,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. Studies have linked anorexia to neurons that bear a protein named AgRP; these neurons reside in an area of the brain called the hypothalamus that controls feeding behavior. Researchers have found that removing AgRP neurons leads to fatal anorexia in mice, while activating the neurons results in excessive appetite and obesity. However, there are currently no approved drugs that can target these neurons and change feeding behaviors. In this study, Patrick Sweeney and colleagues discovered that AgRP-bearing neurons controlled feeding in mice via a receptor named MC3R. Deleting MC3R led to anorexia and anxious behavior in the rodents, but activating the receptor with the experimental molecule C18 instead stimulated the rodents' appetites, boosted weight gain, and prevented anxious movement. Interestingly, the team also observed that the Mc3r gene showed sex-specific differences. Female mice had far higher amounts of Mc3r-expressing neurons in the AVPV region of the hypothalamus, and the team also noted sex-specific differences in MC3R expression while analyzing a human transcriptomic dataset. Sweeney et al. speculate that targeting MC3R could either treat anorexia or promote weight loss in obesity and call for safety studies in humans.
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Video: https://bit.ly/pelicanflightvideo
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Handwriting analysis of Dead Sea Scrolls indicates text was written by multiple scribes
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Handwriting analysis of one of the Dead Sea Scrolls indicates the biblical text was likely written by multiple scribes, who mirrored one another's writing styles.
INFORMATION:
Article Title: Artificial intelligence based writer identification generates new evidence for the unknown scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls exemplified by the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa)
Funding: 'Mladen Popovi? Project: The Hands that Wrote the Bible Grant Number: ERC Starting Grant 640497 European Research Council https://erc.europa.eu/ The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.'
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249769
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Weight gain in older age does not appear to preserve cognitive performance
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Weight gain in older age does not appear to preserve cognitive performance, according to study of 58,389 European adults
INFORMATION:
Article Title: Bodyweight change and cognitive performance in the older population
Funding: None of the authors of the manuscript has received specific funding for the work included in this submission. The funders mentioned below did not play any role in the study design, data analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The SHARE data collection has been primarily funded by the European Commission through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), ...
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Cracking the code of the Dead Sea Scrolls
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