Intriguingly, patients receiving deep brain stimulation of the subthalamus, which includes the ZI, for the treatment of movement disorders can exhibit characteristics of binge eating<\/strong>. To explore this phenomenon in greater detail, Xiaobing Zhang and Anthony N. van den Pol optogenetically labelled GABA neurons in the ZIs of mice.<\/p>\n They found that stimulating ZI GABA neurons with axons extending into the paraventricular thalamus (PVT) prompted immediate binge-like eating<\/strong>, just two to three seconds after stimulation. Within ten minutes of continuous ZI GABA stimulation, mice rapidly consumed 35% of their daily high-fat food store, meant to be eaten over a 24-hour period.<\/p>\n The researchers also found that ghrelin, a hormone that signals a reduced energy state in the gut, excited ZI GABA neurons<\/strong>. Upon stimulating the subgroup of ZI neurons for five minutes every three hours over a period of two weeks, the mice significantly increased their food intake, and gained weight.<\/p>\n Yet, once photostimulation was over, the mice showed a significantly reduced food intake compared with that of controls.<\/p>\n Lastly, the authors found that stimulation of excitatory axons from the parasubthalamic nucleus to PVT or direct stimulation of glutamate neurons in the PVT reduced food intake.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the\u00a0American Association for the Advancement of Science press release: Researchers have identified a subgroup of neurons in the mouse brain that, upon activation, immediately prompt binge-like eating. Furthermore, repeated… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[353,10,6],"tags":[42,134,223,100,65,457,93],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21345"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21345"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21520,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21345\/revisions\/21520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/junk-food-sweets.jpg\")
Researchers have identified a subgroup of neurons in the mouse brain that, upon activation, immediately prompt binge-like eating<\/strong>. Furthermore, repeated stimulation of these neurons over time caused the mice to gain weight. The zona incerta (ZI)<\/strong> is a relatively understudied part of the brain.<\/p>\n