The Effects of Leptin on Modulating Eating Habits and Drug Addiction

    Obesity and drug addiction rates have skyrocketed across the globe within the past two decades and showing no sign of slowing down. One reason these epidemics have been allowed to proliferate is due to how society interacts with them. Both diseases are viewed with scrutiny and disdain as a byproduct of western philosophy that centers on the individual and their agency in making choices.  As a result, many hold the notion that these afflicted individuals should pull themselves up by the bootstraps and curb their behavior. While it may be easy to pin the blame on the individuals lack of will, current research regarding the role of neurochemical modulation suggests that individuals are wired to engage in these activities. Specifically, researchers have been exploring the effects of leptin upon the brain reward circuit and how it modulates food related behavior and drug consumption. 

In their paper, “ A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila”, Dr. Beshel and her team explored the effects of mammalian leptin homolog, upd1 and how it effects obesity linked behavior. By manipulating upd1 in drosophila, flies exhibited commonly associated symptoms of mammalian obesity such as increased attraction to food cues, increased food intake, and increased weight. It was discovered that these symptoms were the result of mediation by dome-less receptors expressing Drosophila neuropeptide F, a homolog to mammalian neuropeptide Y. Within the NPY circuits, which is functionally conserved, upd1 inhibits npf neurons until the flies have eaten after which npf activity increases and upd1 secretion decreases. Dr. Beshel’s research effectively highlights the role leptin has in the brain reward mechanisms as it inhibits hunger and also showcases that obesity is an etiologically diverse condition with no singular cause. 

Given that leptin has a distinct role in modulating the reward circuit in the brain via inhibition of hunger, researchers in Brazil have taken an interest in leptins role in modulating drug use, specifically with crack cocaine. In Dr. Escobar and her teams’ paper “Leptin levels and its correlation with crack-cocaine use severity: A preliminary study”, their main priority was to discover a possible correlation between leptin concentration and the severity of crack use.  The paper cites that given the role of food and illicit drugs in the brain reward circuit, it can be expected to see a sharing of neurochemicals among drug seeking behavior and food consumption. Using this logic, the researchers hypothesized that leptin has a role in modulating the drug seeking behaviors. By taking blood samples and surveys from crack users, the researchers were able to measure leptin levels and severity of crack use. It was found that leptin concentration yielded an inverse correlation with the severity of crack use, with higher severity crack users displaying lower levels of leptin.  Given the results, the researchers postulated that leptin may have a role in regulating crack intake. These findings also suggest that leptin could be used as a neurochemical marker in the regulation of crack use and highlights leptin’s role within the brain’s reward circuit.  The paper cites previous human clinical studies have found lower concentrations of leptin in cocaine users as compared to non-users and also reported cocaine dependent users having higher intake of fat and carb rich foods. This phenomenon seems to support the researcher’s assumptions that the sympathetic effects of cocaine inhibit leptin and stimulate overeating. The study however did have some short comings, as it included a cross sectional design, lacked female participants and a control group. However, the study discovered a possible link between leptin and the modulation of food intake and drug use which opens up room for further investigation. 

    Obesity and drug addiction are seen as afflictions resulting from the weakness of one’s will and only require a simple solution, stop partaking in their respective vices. The research from Dr. Beshel’s lab and Dr. Escobar have been integral steps forward in the investigation of how leptin operates in the brain reward circuits. Both papers highlight the complex mechanisms behind food seeking behavior and also accentuate the notion that these conditions hold varied etiologies. The information gleaned from this research paves the way not only for a more complete understanding of how leptin works but also allows for the removal of the stigma associated with these conditions. If society doesn’t engage in a cultural revolution in how they view epidemics like obesity and drug addiction, they will continue to wreak havoc upon their victims. 

Citations

Beshel, J., Dubnau, J., & Zhong, Y. (2017). A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila. Cell metabolism, 25(1), 208–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2016.12.013

Escobar, M., Scherer, J. N., Ornell, F., Bristot, G., Soares, C. M., Guimarães, L. S., . . . Pechansky, F. (2018). Leptin levels and its correlation with crack-cocaine use severity: A preliminary study. Neuroscience Letters, 671, 56-59. doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2018.02.009

The Importance of Leptin in Obesity-Linked Behaviors and Fighting Infections

Leptin is a hormone predominantly made by adipose cells and enterocytes in the small intestine that plays a role in regulating energy balance by inhibiting hunger, which diminishes fat storage in adipocytes. Leptin sends signals to the hypothalamus in the brain, allowing adipocytes to communicate with the brain on how much energy is required. 

In the article, “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity Linked Behaviors in Drosophila” Jennifer Beshel et. al studied the effect of the fly leptin analog unpaired 1 (upd1) on obesity related traits in Drosophila. The pathway upd1 suppresses npf activity and thus regulates expression of food related behavior. Antibody staining showed that upd1 is also seen in fat tissue but has no effect on food cue attraction or weight. Upd1 immunostaining showed that lower levels of upd1 were seen in the cell body in the fed state. After staining flies were exposed to a behavioral chamber where they were exposed to filtered air through four ports with one carrying yeast-odorized air mimicking food cues. Flies with knockdown of upd1 showed attraction to food cues as that of flies experiencing starvation. These flies also consumed more food per hour as compared to control groups. Knockdown of upd2 and upd3 had no effect on food cue attraction or feeding. Reintroduciton of upd1, human leptin or upd2 in brain tissue reduced the increase in obesity-related behaviors seen with the absence of upd1. The results show that adipose and brain derived upd and leptin may control features of weight regulation through specific neural circuits. When moved to 30 degrees Celsius flies carrying transgenes Gal80ts combined with elav-Gal4 and UAS-upd1 showed an increase in obesity-related behaviors. Antibody staining was used to identify the neural components behind this circuit. Beshel et. al found that domeless receptor is co-localized with npf which is the Drosophila NPY homolog. These receptors are needed for signaling satiety. Previous research shows the higher the npf activity the higher attraction to food cues. In this study they found that reduction of npf at the level of the cell body in starved flies is avoided in flies with excess upd1. The manipulation of upd1 in neurons impacts obesity-related behaviors such as food cues and food intake that lead to weight gain. This study is unique in that it addresses the neural circuitry behind the leptin analog upd1 found in drosophila. 

In the article mentioned above, researchers were analyzing the leptin analog upd1 and it’s effect on obesity-linked behaviors. A recent article published by Pennington Biomedical research center titled “Why Is Obesity So Common in COVID-19 Patients?” analyzes the effect leptin can have on one’s response to a COVID-19 infection. This article looks at not only leptin's role in appetite and metabolism but leptin’s role in fighting infections. Elevated leptin levels inhibit the body’s ability to fight infections. High levels promote a low-grade systemic inflammatory state making it more difficult to fight off an infection such as COVID-19. The article sites Candida Rebello’s study titled “Obesity, the Most Common Comorbidity in SARS-CoV-2: Is Leptin the Link?” which argues that leptin is the link between the high prevalence of obesity as a comorbidity in COVID-19 patients. 

All three articles show the importance of the hormone leptin and how further investigation into it’s functionality and the role it can play in both metabolism and infection is important. The discovery that the leptin analog upd1, in Drosophila, acts through a conserved neural circuit in the brain to regulate obesity could lead to future studies on how to reduce leptin levels in humans to lessen the prevalence of comorbidity with infections such as COVID-19. The articles emphasize the importance of understanding the neural mechanisms and pathways behind energy balance in the human body and the role of leptin; highlighting the importance of understanding the hormone and how leptin continues to affect the health of people as new infections and diseases such as COVID-19 come up. 

Works Cited: 

Beshel, Jennifer, et al. A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila. Cell Metabolism, vol. 25, no. 1, 2017

Rebello, Candida J., et al. Obesity, the Most Common Comorbidity in SARS-CoV-2: Is Leptin the Link? International Journal of Obesity, vol. 44, no. 9, 2020

Why Is Obesity So Common in COVID-19 Patients? Pennington Biomedical Research Center, 24 July 2020, www.pbrc.edu/news/press-releases/?ArticleID=592

The Ongoing Epidemic the COVID Pandemic Thrives on

    Our modern world is facing a two-fold crisis, although one part is not being addressed with the same rigor as the other. Undoubtedly the first part is the overarching COVID-19 pandemic which has killed 1 million people worldwide as of September 28th, 2020. Beyond this pandemic also lies a crisis that has been a silent killer for decades and is currently putting almost half of the United States population at greater risk for contracting COVID-19: the obesity crisis. It is critical that we study the mechanisms of obesity to further understand its detrimental effects, especially during a pandemic that puts obese patients at greater risk for mortality. One research lab in particular is taking great strides to uncover the neural circuit that modulates obesity-linked behaviors in humans by looking at flies.

    In the article “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila” by Dr. Jennifer Beshel and colleagues, the lab examined unpaired 1 (upd1), a mammalian leptin analog. Leptin is a fat-derived satiety factor found in humans that essentially tells the body to stop eating once it is full, often acting as the target in many obesity studies. Along with upd1, the researchers examined the domeless receptor, an analog for leptin receptors found in the human body. Studying upd1 and the domeless receptor acts as a way for the researchers to study the mechanisms of obesity in the flies and apply their findings to humans. By “knocking down” upd1 and domeless receptors (in other words, inhibiting their function) they were able to potentially model the effect of losing leptin or leptin receptors in the human body. Results showed that the upd1 and domeless receptor knockdown flies showed a heightened attraction to food cues, weight gain, and increased fat storage. Taking the experiments further, the lab also created varying food landscapes, one including the “21st century” diet as modeled by a high-fat diet. Surprisingly, both control and knockdown flies gained weight on this diet, but the knockdown flies showed a four-fold increase in weight. In summary, the article suggests the complexity of the mechanisms of obesity, showing its “heterogeneous” origin that includes both vulnerability in terms of biology as well as a changing food landscape. With a conserved neural circuit that contributes to obesity-linked behaviors found in flies, research labs like Dr. Beshel’s can help us further understand obesity in humans, which has recently been discovered to be critical in understanding the risk of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

    In the New York Times article “Studies Begin to Untangle Obesity’s Role in Covid-19”, journalist Katherine J. Wu explores a multitude of studies that uncover the risk of COVID-19 in obese individuals. One particular study, “Metabolic Syndrome and Viral Pathogenesis: Lessons from Influenza and Coronaviruses”, looks at how the increased levels of adipose tissue in obese patients causes leptin resistance and increases the risk of infection with COVID-19. According to the study, the accumulation of lipids found in obese individuals leads to leptin resistance which feeds forward a greater accumulation of lipids. High lipid levels in the body allows viruses to take advantage of lipid raft formation to allow easier viral entry, further up-regulating lipid metabolism and causing a chronic systemic inflammation that predisposes obese populations to more severe infections of COVID-19. Although such obesity-driven dysregulation of the immune response to COVID-19 is rapidly being uncovered, there is still much work to be done on the exact mechanisms involved. The differential progress of the disease in obese individuals is also currently posing a problem for potential vaccines, with many pharmaceutical companies claiming that they are not planning on investigating the fact that the vaccines may not even work for obese patients, sparking criticism from many medical experts. How can our nation treat COVID-19 when the vaccines are not expected to properly work in 42% of our population?

   Although obesity has been a silent killer for decades, in combination with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is putting more people's lives at risk than it ever has before. It is therefore critical that researchers like Dr. Beshel continue working on uncovering the mechanisms of obesity in order to help the nation develop vaccines that will be effective in all populations, including obese patients.

Works Cited

Beshel, Jennifer, et al. “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila.” Cell Metabolism, vol. 25, no. 1, 2017, pp. 208–217., doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2016.12.013. 

Huizinga, Gabrielle P, et al. “The Collision of Meta-Inflammation and SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Infection.” Endocrinology, vol. 161, no. 11, 2020, doi:10.1210/endocr/bqaa154. 

Wu, Katherine J. “Studies Begin to Untangle Obesity's Role in Covid-19.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Sept. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/health/covid-obesity.html?searchResultPosition=1.

Enhancing Education Through Gesture

Perceiving and performing gestures is one of many efficient ways we communicate with one another. Gestures become a part of our lives as soon as we are born and continue on throughout our lives. We often make hand movements when we talk, count, tell a story or point attention towards something. Most importantly, gestures can help us learn and remember. Regardless of the subject, gestures can be utilized to explain such subjects in a productive manner. Given the current circumstances, it is crucial to find new ways to facilitate the process of teaching and learning for students to gain a rewarding educational experience. One way to do so is to incorporate gestures to not only teaching but learning experiences as well. 

In the article “Gesture helps learners learn, but not merely by guiding their visual attention,” Dr. Wakefield and colleagues studied the beneficial connection between including gestures in instruction and learning outcomes. Children between the ages of 8 to 10 were randomly assigned to the Speech Along or Speech + Gesture training condition. Participants watched six instructional videos appropriate to their assigned condition, were instructed to solve a problem after each one, and took a posttest after watching all videos. Through the implementation of eye tracking measures, researchers found a difference in visual attention tendencies between children in different conditions. The researchers found that participants who were shown instructional videos including spoken and gestured instruction performed significantly better on a posttest than children who were taught through spoken instruction alone. Watching an instructor gesture changed the way participants allocated their visual attention, they looked more to the problem and gesture space and less to the instructor, so they were able to effectively follow along with the instructions. Following along with speech showed an increase in frequency and efficacy when gesture was included. These findings are crucial for understanding the way gesture functions to direct one’s attention in an instructional context along with the mechanisms underlying gesture’s effect on learning outcomes. Based on these findings, we can see clear evidence that children visually attend to instruction more efficiently when gestures are included. 

The influential findings from Dr. Wakefield’s study provide supporting evidence that incorporating gestures facilitates children’s ability to allocate their visual attention to the problem being explained and synchronize their visual attention with information being presented by the instructor. Cherdieu’s article “Make Gestures to Learn: Reproducing Gestures Improves the Learning of Anatomical Knowledge More than Just Seeing Gestures,” explains the benefits of not only seeing but making gestures while learning. Two groups of adult participants were asked to look at a video lecture on the forearm anatomy, which included an instructor making gestures related to the content of the lecture. Though in this case both groups were exposed to gestures, only one group was instructed to imitate gestures made by the instructor. After testing participants’ knowledge after learning and again a few days later, results showed that imitating gestures improved the recall of structure names and their localization on a diagram. An important finding from this research states that the differences between the Gesture and the Control group were mainly significantly better in the long-term subset of evaluations, though short-term subjective evaluations suggest that the Gesture group felt more engaged during the lecture. 

The findings from these two research articles can be combined to efficiently improve the process of teaching and learning. While Dr. Wakefield’s study emphasizes the benefits of seeing gestures in instructional videos, Dr. Cherdiu’s study emphasizes the benefits of imitating the gestures the instructors are making. Research in this field is highly beneficial for students to incorporate something most of us do naturally in a way that will enhance their educational  experience. Given that this topic can be particularly useful during these times where learning has become quite challenging, it is certainly worth exploring.

Citations:

Cherdieu, Mélaine, et al. “Make Gestures to Learn: Reproducing Gestures Improves the Learning of Anatomical Knowledge More than Just Seeing Gestures.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 8, 2017, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01689.

Wakefield, Elizabeth, et al. “Gesture Helps Learners Learn, but Not Merely by Guiding Their Visual Attention.” Developmental Science, vol. 21, no. 6, 2018, doi:10.1111/desc.12664.

New Biotechnology: Cerebral Organoids

    Scientist's will go to great lengths in the pursuit of knowledge. Some of our knowledge has come from exploitation of defenseless human beings through unethical experimentations. Some extreme examples include Joseph Mengele's experiments on identical twins, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and Jonas Salk's experiment on patients in a psychiatric hospital. In more recent decades, scientists have moved to more ethical means of conducting research, but there are still ethical dilemmas present. Therefore, we must ask ourselves: how far are we willing to go to acquire new knowledge and are the results of our experiments worth the ethical conflicts?

    The article "Dynamic Characterization of Structural, Molecular, and Electrophysiological Phenotypes of Human-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cerebral Organoids, and Comparison with Fetal and Adult Gene Profiles" by Logan et. al. outlines the characteristics of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) derived cerebral organoids and why they are an important novel biotechnology. The most important aspect of these novel cerebral organoids is they are closer to actual human brains that previous models. For instance, the two-dimensional monolayer iPSC-derived neural cell model does not resemble the structure of a human brain, but iPSC-derived cerebral organoids are three-dimensional and closely resemble fetal human brains. Not only do they have a three-dimensional structure, but they also have areas that are comparable to regions of a human brain. This expands the different types of research that can be done on model cultures. The iPSC-derived cerebral organoids also show spontaneous electrical activity, drug action, and electrochemical responses. These are all important aspects of a cerebral model culture because they can better replicate disease and development and ultimately provide better, more extensive, research.

    In the article "An Ethical Future for Brain Organoids Takes Shape," published on Quanta magazine, Jordana Cepelewicz outlines a foreseeable ethical dilemma (organoids becoming conscious) and explains the already existing rules that control organoids derived from iPSCs. Even though cerebral organoids becoming conscious seems like science fiction, researchers will continue to make progress on growing more human-like organoids and may eventually create one capable of consciousness. Consciousness is a problem because it may lead to the organelles feeling pain or becoming self-aware, but even the best cerebral organoid model is nowhere near consciousness. More present ethical dilemmas that researchers are facing include the advantageousness of using cerebral organoids. In other words, do they actually do what scientists claim they can do, and can they be adequately used to study human brain development and diseases, if they cannot this research is all in vain. Expanding our knowledge in growing human brain models is vital to progression of understanding development and disease, but we must also explore the ethical implications we open up when creating new biotechnologies.

WORKS CITED

Cepelewicz, Jordana. "An Ethical Future for Brain Organoids Takes Shape." Quanta Magazine, Quanta Magazine, 23 Jan. 2020, www.quantamagazine.org/an-ethical-future-for-brain-organoids-takes-shape-20200123/.

Logan, Sarah, et al. "Dynamic Characterization of Structural, Molecular, and Electrophysiological Phenotypes of Human-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cerebral Organoids, and Comparison with Fetal and Adult Gene Profiles." Cells, 23 May 2020, pp. 1-22. MDPI, www.mdip.com/2070-4409/9/5/1301. doi: 10.3390/cells9051301

Gesture Based Learning in Action

Finding more effective ways of learning has always been an important topic. What people learn as children can shape the person they become and may lead them to later contribute to growing debates on other important topics in the world. Whether that is in the sciences, politics, or education, they can all contribute to a growing understanding and appreciation of knowledge that affects everyday life. An important topic that revolves around education, is not only what we learn, but how we learn.

In her study, "Learning math by hand: The neutral effects of gesture-based instruction in 8-year old children", Elizabeth Wakefield and her colleagues wanted to know if the learning effects of gestures originate from the fact that gesture is a type of action. The researchers analyzed a group of twenty 7-9-year-old children before, during, and after they were taught a math lesson in which they had to make one side of the equation equal to the other. For instance, the children were presented with 6 problems to solve with the for "a+b+c= _+c", so that a+b should be the answer that goes into the blank to make both sides equal to each other. Wakefield and her colleagues split the children into two groups, the speech-alone, and the speech + gesture groups. The speech-alone group learned the phrase "I want to make one side equal to the other", while the speech + gesture group learned the same phrase but had the instructor and children underline the phrase "one side" with the left hand as they said it, and then used their right hand to underline the words "other side" as they said that phrase. In the study, the children were tested with a series of problems that reflected the same format as the math problems seen during the learning and practice periods. The results showed that the children that had learned through gesture and speech displayed significantly greater activation in the parts of the brain that are used to process information during action-based learning, than did children in the speech-alone group. The children that were in the speech + gesture group demonstrated a better understanding of how to solve the problem, suggesting that gestures did actually help in learning and lead to longer-lasting learning effects.

Wakefield's study showed the effect gestures can have on learning and how it can be much more effective than teaching through speech alone. A notion that was recently put to the test by teachers across the country teaching their students through gestures, movements, and pictures to keep their students engaged during the current virtual learning experience, as was seen in a recent news article by Inside Edition. In the news article, there is one teacher, in particular, that was shown saying "2 and 2, that will also make 4" while holding up 2 fingers in each hand and bringing them together as she said "that will also make 4", to help engage the students in what she is talking about, but also to help them visualize what she is talking about. In the video included in the article, this teacher is heard saying that she can see one of her students holding up 2 fingers with each hand when the teacher asked for 4.

Gesturing is something we do naturally, but can also be a great tool to help enhance learning, as was suggested by Wakefield's findings and the short clip seen of the teacher and student using their fingers to visualize the material. It is also important to note that gestures can also be used as a tool to keep students engaged in classes during these new and uncertain times of virtual learning.

Citations:

Wakefield, E.M., Congdon, E.L., Novack, M.A., Goldin-Meadow, S., James, K.H. (2019). Learning math by hand: The neural effects of gesture-based instruction in 8-year-old children. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 81, 2343-2353. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-019-01755-y.

Inside Edition Staff. (2020, September). Teachers Show What it Takes to Keep Kids Engaged During Remote Learning. Inside Edition. https://www.insideedition.com/teachers-show-what-it-takes-to-keep-kids-engaged-during-remote-learning-62037.

Neural Changes Associated with Obesity

 

Around the globe, obesity has become a growing issue over the past two decades. It has been linked to the development and worsening of health conditions in individuals who suffer from obesity. As obesity is on the rise in countries throughout the world, researchers turn to our brains to better understand how obesity changes our bodies in order to help develop treatments.

Some of the researchers studying obesity and its effects, it has on our brains are Dr. Jennifer Beshel, Dr. Josh Dubnae, and Dr. Yi Zhong. Dr. Beshel and her team have spent the better part of a decade researching the Drosophila’s central neural circuits in eating behaviors. Within their study, “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila”, this team found that the Drosophila neuropeptide F’s regulatory effects on feeding behavior are similar to the neuropeptide Y regulator found in humans. Additionally, Beshel’s team found that the unpaired 1 (upd1) ligand within Drosophila is the analog to the human leptin hormone. Pointing to the notion that Drosophila is a wonderful organism to study obesity in as this fly’s neural circuits are analogous to those found in humans. During this study, Beshel either removed functional domeless receptors or the functional npd1gene, both inhibit the ability for the Drosophila brain to produce satisfaction signaling which leads to weight gain. There is a similar response occurs with leptin and leptin receptors within the human brain; as leptin is unable to bind to leptin receptors, the brain is unable to signal satisfaction and unable to inhibit eating behaviors. It should be noted that within humans, it has been studied that the majority of cases involving obesity do not have nonfunctional leptin or leptin receptors. Instead, it is theorized that leptin resistance has developed within the brain leading to improper signaling.

Another group of researchers studying the effects of obesity within the central nervous system is Dr. Sophia Sui, Dr. Michael Ridding, and Dr. Brenton Hordacre. In the article, “Obesity is Associated with Reduced Plasticity of the Human Motor Cortex”, Dr. Sui and her team discussed their findings on the effects obesity has on neural plasticity within the motor cortex. Through continuous theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), Dr. Sui was able to reduce the activity on neurons within the motor cortex, specifically the neurons associated with hand muscles. Within the group of individuals within a height range, there was a significant reduction of neural activity within the hand indicating that there is a high level of plasticity within the motor cortex. Within the group of obese individuals, there was a minimal amount of reduction of neural activity within the hand indicating that there is a low level of plasticity within the motor cortex. Lower plasticity can be correlated to worsening cognition, memory, and issues in learning, so this study can link structural changes to behavioral ones. It is crucial to note that this research study long-term depression only, so more studies are needed to fully understand the long-term changes in neurons. This research helps to gain insight into how obesity impacts our neurons and neural connections that influence overall health.

Obesity has begun to plague our nation and globe. As obesity rises, so does the known and unknown health consequences associated with it. Dr. Beshel’s research on Drosophila gives insight into the neural circuit and its inhibition that contributes to the development and preservation of obesity. Dr. Sui’s research with TRM on the motor cortex gives insight into one of the neurological consequences, reduced plasticity, linked to obesity. In order to reduce obesity worldwide, we must gain more knowledge through this research to better understand how obesity changes our bodies.  

 Citations:

Beshel J, Dubnau J, Zhong Y. A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila. Cell Metab. 2017;25(1):208-217. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2016.12.013

Sui SX, Ridding MC, Hordacre B. Obesity is Associated with Reduced Plasticity of the Human Motor Cortex. Brain Sci. 2020;10(9):E579. Published 2020 Aug 21. doi:10.3390/brainsci10090579