A drug prescribed for weight reduction and kind 2 diabetes may improve associative learning in individuals with obesity, a recent study has found.
Associative learning is the method by which living things learn concerning the connections between things happening around them. It involves each modifications of existing behaviors and the event of recent behaviors.
Researchers from Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research evaluated how associative learning changes in individuals with impaired insulin sensitivity related to obesity. They studied associated learning behaviors in two groups of participants; one with normal weight, who had high insulin sensitivity, and the opposite with reduced insulin sensitivity from obesity. The team found that reduced insulin sensitivity from obesity impairs associative learning.
The participants within the obese group were either given a placebo or liraglutide – a weight reduction drug prescribed for obesity and kind 2 diabetes.
With a single dose of liraglutide, the impaired associative learning in obese people could be reversed and brought back to the degrees same as that of individuals with normal weight, in accordance with the findings, published within the journal Nature Metabolism.
“These findings are of fundamental importance. We show here that basic behaviors resembling associative learning depend not only on external environmental conditions but in addition on the body’s metabolic state. So, whether someone has obese or not also determines how the brain learns to associate sensory signals and what motivation is generated. The normalization we achieved with the drug in subjects with obesity, subsequently, matches with studies showing that these drugs restore a standard feeling of satiety, causing people to eat less and subsequently shed extra pounds,” study leader Marc Tittgemeyer said in a news release.
The study shows how obesity can alter the brain and the way the method could be modified with medication. The researchers plan to perform further studies to grasp how liraglutide works at a molecular level. In addition they plan to explore if other approaches resembling weight reduction trials and insulin sensitizers may also herald similar improvements.
“While it’s encouraging that available drugs have a positive effect on brain activity in obesity, it’s alarming that changes in brain performance occur even in young individuals with obesity without other medical conditions. Obesity prevention should play a much greater role in our healthcare system in the long run. Lifelong medication is the less preferred option as compared to primary prevention of obesity and associated complications,” said Ruth Hanßen, first writer of the study and a physician on the University Hospital of Cologne.
Published by Medicaldaily.com