New Drugs Penetrate Deep Into the Brain to Suppress Cravings

[sbrothy]

TL;DR

NIH-funded research identifies new mechanism of action for next-generation weight-loss drugs

Oral Small-Molecule GLP-1 Drugs Penetrate Deep Into the Brain to Suppress Cravings ((NIH)-funded study, post from May 6, 2026)..

This paper is somewhat over my paygrade but I found it interesting for a couple of reasons:

A National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study has found that an emerging class of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs suppress eating for pleasure, or hedonic feeding, in mice by modulating a reward circuit deep within the brain. This newly charted pathway — separate from previously described mechanisms that broadly affect appetite — could be an avenue by which GLP-1s treat other dysfunctions in reward processing, such as substance use disorder.

Also:

To gain a better understanding, the authors modified the GLP-1 receptors of mice with gene-editing techniques, making them more humanlike.

I know it's very abstract but the last comment there kinda gave me goosebumps. "Humanlike"?!

EDIT: With "over my paygrade" I meant the actual research paper

 

[BillTre]

I know it's very abstract but the last comment there kinda gave me goosebumps. "Humanlike"?!

Transgenic mouse production fairly common now.
This means that in mice you can switch in human versions of a gene for the mouse version.
In this case, they are talking about replacing mouse GLP receptor gene(s) with the human version.
This is done for purposes of drug testing on human gene products without having to deal with those troublesome humans and their compliance rules.

 

[sbrothy]

Transgenic mouse production fairly common now.
This means that in mice you can switch in human versions of a gene for the mouse version.
In this case, they are talking about replacing mouse GLP receptor gene(s) with the human version.
This is done for purposes of drug testing on human gene products without having to deal with those troublesome humans and their compliance rules.

Aah. I knew it made sense. To a layman it just sounded like pure scifi at first glance. Thanks for clearing that up.

EDIT: Although now I think about it "transgenic mouse production" doesn't sound much better.

 

[sbrothy]

Scanning through the actual paper (to say I read it would be an overstatement) I'm impressed with how far biochemistry has come since the four-humours "theory".

I'm still reeling a little from reading that "biography of cancer", "The Emperor of all Maladies".