Eating fatty foods causes faulty brain signalling, says study
Posted on: 23/Sep/2015 5:34:36 PM
A study published in the journal Heliyon has said that high fat diets lead to overeating due to faulty brain signalling. Scientists studied a particular signalling pathway in the brain, which involves insulin signalling. They also studied how it works in specific brain cell circuits. The proteins that are involved in this process are called Rapamycin complex 2 or mTORC2.
Brain cells in mice were genetically altered by taking out some of the protein. The study showed that those who lacked the protein ate high fat foods more that those that did not. Those mice that had lower mTORC2 also had lower dopamine levels in certain regions of the brain - incidentally those regions that associated with obesity. This lack of dopamine increased the occurrence if substance abuse.
Said one researcher, Findings revealed a system that was designed to control eating of rewarding foods that were high in fat and possibly sugar, adding that this system could be hijacked by the very foods that it was designed to control... Eating a high-fat or high-carbohydrate diet felt rewarding, but also appeared to cause changes in the brain areas that were involved in controlling eating, by causing for example insulin resistance.
