Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C0pPAWCLJoU/ The smell and taste of food trigger specialized brain cells that curb your appetite and compel you to stop eating.  Neuroscientists at UC-San Francisco have studied this phenomenon in a mouse model. The brain cells that exert this function, called prolactin-releasing hormone cells or PRLH cells, are located deep in the brainstem, the center for many of our involuntary bodily functions.  They turn on when we first taste food.  Another group of neurons, CGC cells, become activated by stomach filling and they inhibit further eating as we become full. It wasn’t until the investigators developed techniques to image and record the electrical activities of these groups of brainstem cells that this mechanism which triggers hunger and fullness became apparent.  Even more interesting is the finding that the CGC appetite suppressing cells, when activated, release GLP-1, the hormone that the latest diet drugs mimic. As we better understand this push-pull mechanism,