Fatty diets and weight problems have an effect on the construction and performance of astrocytes, the star-shaped mind cells situated within the striatum, a mind area concerned within the notion of delight generated by meals consumption. What’s much more stunning is that by manipulating these astrocytes in vivo in mice can affect metabolism and proper sure cognitive adjustments related to weight problems (capacity to relearn a job, for instance). These outcomes, described by scientists from the CNRS and the Université Paris Cité, are to be revealed on 7 July within the journal Nature Communication.
These discoveries reinforce the concept that astrocytes (lengthy uncared for in favour of neurons) play a key position in mind operate. In addition they show, for the primary time, the flexibility of astrocytes to revive cognitive operate within the context of weight problems, opening up new avenues of analysis to establish their precise position in power metabolism.
These conclusions had been reached utilizing a mixture of ex vivo and in vivo approaches in rodents, together with chemogenetic strategies, mind imaging, locomotion checks, cognitive habits and measuring the physique’s power metabolism.
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Journal reference:
Montalban, E., et al. (2025). Striatal astrocytes modulate behavioral flexibility and whole-body metabolism in mice. Nature Communications. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60968-y.