Weight
gain is a battle that many of us have to fight. Ofttimes not too successful,
but we keep trying, especially at this time of the year as our New Year
resolutions are beginning to crumble under the pressure of our daily grind. New
diet books don’t help too much either, it’s practical help we need.
The
problem seems to lie deep within our brains in the hypothalamus. The side
regions of this part of our brain shout, “feed me” like Audrey II in ‘Little
Shop Of Horrors’. The middle part is supposed to tell us to stop – we are
satiated. It does, however, seem to say it quietly and is sometimes easy to
ignore as parts of our reward and pleasure systems take over.
Now
Melega et al from U Cal. Los Angeles
are asking the question can sticking wires deep into your brain and connecting
you to a power supply provide that control (1)? To check this out they chose a
group of Göttingen mini-pigs, which are popular models for people, only easier to handle
being quite small.
When
offered a great deal of food, they will pig out and over time get used to
overeating and end up with an obesity problem. 8 pigs were wired up and half of
these were used as controls and the other half had their brains deeply
stimulated. They were all offered twice as much to eat as they had been given
previously when they were holding their fighting weights.
The
results were interesting. All four who enjoyed brain tingling daily maintained
their optimal weights. The other four on average gained weight steadily. I stress
on average as one of our unstimulated brave girls also maintained her weight at
the optimal level in the face of abundance.
Perhaps
we’ll see clinics springing up in Tinseltown and its environs offering
electrode implants and smartphone apps to provide the stimulation level
dependent on a complex algorithm based on weight, stress levels, and
desirability of menu items.
- http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030672
