"To trigger that feeling of fullness, does just one wire need to be activated, or are there several that need to be activated? How is this sensory system organized to distinguish proteins from carbohydrates or lipids, and then how does it send messages to secrete enzymes that will digest each of them?
Peering into the gut-brain connection in mice, Harvard Medical School researchers led by Stephen Liberles discovered two distinct types of sensory neurons that survey the status of the gastrointestinal tract: one senses stretch in the stomach and one responds to the presence of nutrients in the intestine...
The neurons that sense stretch in the stomach produce receptors for glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), a hormone released from the intestine in response to the arrival of nutrients. GLP-1 analogs are powerful anti-diabetic drugs. While it might seem likely that neurons containing the GLP-1 receptor would respond to nutrients, the team's experiments instead showed they were sensitive to mechanical stretch of the stomach and the intestine...
Nutrients are detected by GPR65 neurons, which express receptors for the hormone serotonin."
Interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment