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Contact: David West
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466
1/9/98
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NATCHITOCHES - Our brain could be one of the parts of the body that helps us know when we've had enough to eat, and that insight could help understand eating disorders including obesity, bulimia and anorexia nervosa. Those findings are part of an ongoing research project at Northwestern State University.
Biologist Dr. Curt Phifer of the Louisiana Scholars' College at NSU presented his research findings recently at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience held in New Orleans. The meeting drew 25,000 university faculty, physicians and industrial scientists from around the world.
Phifer's presentation included results from a series of experiments completed in collaboration with other neuroscientists at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. The Pennington Center contains 40 laboratories and approximately 400 employees working on nutrition, metabolism, feeding behavior control and related concerns such as heart disease and diet-related cancers.
The project Phifer discussed involved using adult laboratory rats as a model for understanding the roles that different nutrients have on brain activity and feeding behavior. More than 50 rats received surgically implanted tubes for infusion of nutrients directly into their intestines. Specific brain regions were also infused with marker substances. The rats were then tested for behavioral responses to intestinal infusions of specific carbohydrates, fats and proteins, as well as water and saline for control treatments. After the behavioral experiments, the brains of the rats were analyzed for activation of specific regions by specific nutrients.
"The results of the analyses indicate that intestinal infusions containing the same number of calories but different nutrients have different effects on feeding behavior and brain activation," said Phifer. "Rats that received infusions of fats ate 30 percent less than rats that received the same calories in proteins, and 90 percent less than rats who received the same calories in glucose. Fat infusions also produced greater stimulation on nerve cells that are believed to be involved in feeding-behavior control."
According to Phifer, the findings confirm in animal studies something that was suspected in humans -- fats tend to curb our appetites more than other foods. The study also reveals brain regions in rats that are at least partially responsible for the effects. Phifer also with students in the Scholars' College are performing additional analyses on the rat brains to determine other brain areas and chemical signals that may be involved in animal responses to nutrients and lead to better understandings of disorders that effect humans.