Every meal you eat leaves a lasting impression, either being kept as delicious items to seek out again or being avoided in disgust if the flavour is linked to gastrointestinal distress. Signals are coordinated in the brain's most primitive areas, the brain stem or the hindbrain, because choosing which nutrients to seek out and which to avoid turns out to be so important to human welfare.


This area of the brain also helps us decide when we are "full" and when to stop eating. Scientists have focused on the hypothalamus as a way to understand how and why people gain weight as well as the diseases that can be brought on by overeating and obesity ever since the discovery of two interconnected systems, the leptin and melanocortin systems, which play crucial roles in regulating energy balance.

The various brain circuits that converge in the brain stem to control feeding behaviour are examined in a study that was just published in the journal "Nature Metabolism" using a method that offers an objective view of the neurons involved. Scientists have focused on the hypothalamus as a way to understand how and why people gain weight as well as the diseases that can be brought on by overeating and obesity ever since the discovery of two interconnected systems, the leptin and melanocortin systems, which play crucial roles in regulating energy balance.

Recent findings in mice from the Myers lab that demonstrated the existence of two distinct food intake-suppressing brain stem circuits—one that induces nausea and disgust and the other that does not—and work done in collaboration with colleague Tune Pers, PhD, of the University of Copenhagen, are also incorporated into the review.


Pers and his team focused their single cell mapping on the dorsal vagal complex, a part of the brain stem that controls a number of unconscious functions, such as emotions of contentment (or sickness) after eating.

First author Wenwen Cheng, PhD, Myers, Pers, and his colleagues develop a new model of brainstem neural networks and how they regulate hunger and nausea in the current review study by combining these results with other recent findings. The most recent review builds on research conducted in collaboration with Tune Pers, PhD, of the University of Copenhagen, as well as recent discoveries made in mice by the Myers lab that demonstrated the existence of two distinct food intake-suppressing brain stem circuits, one of which induces nausea and disgust and the other of which does not.


Myers claims that a complete map of these neurons and knowledge of the effects of changing these cell targets can aid in the development of drugs with fewer undesirable side effects.