"We describe that the deleterious consequences of unhealthy dietary habits can be partially counteracted by dietary supplementation of n-3 fatty acid. High sugar consumption impaired cognitive abilities and disrupted insulin signalling by engaging molecules associated with energy metabolism and synaptic plasticity; in turn, the presence of docosahexaenoic acid, an n-3 fatty acid, restored metabolic homeostasis. These findings expand the concept of metabolic syndrome affecting the brain and provide the mechanistic evidence of how dietary habits can interact to regulate brain functions, which can further alter lifelong susceptibility to the metabolic disorders."
—
"Inflammation is partly regulated by the hormone cortisol and when cortisol is not allowed to serve this function, inflammation can get out of control,” said Cohen, the Robert E. Doherty Professor of Psychology within CMU’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Cohen argued that prolonged stress alters the effectiveness of cortisol to regulate the inflammatory response because it decreases tissue sensitivity to the hormone. Specifically, immune cells become insensitive to cortisol’s regulatory effect. In turn, runaway inflammation is thought to promote the development and progression of many diseases."
— How Stress Influences Disease: Carnegie Mellon Study Reveals Inflammation as the Culprit
New research findings suggest how the ApoE4 Alzheimer’s gene leads to brain plaques. If you’re new to the topic, having one or two copies of the ApoE4 variant renders you magnitudes likelier to have Alzheimer’s. (You can get tested for the gene variant on a site like 23andme.com, as I did.)
The precise behavior of ApoE4, as opposed to the behavior of the non-threatening ApoE3 and E2, hasn’t been understood until now. In this week’s summary of the new research from the NIH website:
The researchers found that mice whose bodies made only ApoE4, or made no ApoE at all, had a leaky blood-brain barrier. With the barrier compromised, harmful proteins in the blood made their way into the mice’s brains, and after several weeks, the researchers were able to detect loss of small blood vessels, changes in brain function, and a loss of connections between brain cells.
Luckily, there are potential new drug targets indicated by their research that strengthen the blood vessels.
This is huge news.
The original research article appeared in Nature (and was picked up all over the science news and blogs this week). I only hope those mice really have brains like humans, because they’re our guinea pigs for all of this work. :-)
A handful of interesting articles about bacteria affecting your mood or behavior, making me wonder who is really in charge here.
Probiotic bacteria changes behavior in mice: for the “gut-brain axis” fans,
The bacterial menu changed the levels of signalling chemicals in the rodents’ brains, and reduced behaviours associated with stress, anxiety and depression.
Source of probiotic bacteria: kefir, tempeh, miso, kimchi, sauerkraut… Check out a good list here.
Soil Bacteria Work In Similar Way To Antidepressants: Mice who garden are happier.
Researchers from Bristol University and University College London discovered using laboratory mice, that a “friendly” bacteria commonly found in soil activated brain cells to produce the brain chemical serotonin and altered the mice’s behaviour in a similar way to antidepressants.
As an added bonus, bacteria in dirt have anti-cancer skillz, too:
Cancer breakthrough: scientists discover harmless bacteria in soil kills cancer tumors
Finally, there are those weird bacteria that get in your cat-owning brain and make you do things for their reproduction. Science fictional bacterial reign. Here’s that famous How Your Cat is Making You Crazy article in the Atlantic.
