Brain mapping in mice may explain why pain makes us lose our appetite

The person is Christa Lesté-Lasserre.

It may be possible to understand the link between chronic pain and a loss of appetite in animals.

A group of people at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei injected mice with a strain ofbacteria that causes chronic pain. The mice were eating less frequently and for a shorter period of time compared with the control mice that had been injected. When the first group of mice were given pain medication, they ate normally.

The researchers analysed the brains of the first group of mice while they were in pain. The anterior cingulate cortex is a pain-processing area of the brain in the prefrontal cortex.

The researchers provoked chronic pain in another group of mice to see if that signalling was related to appetite loss. The team gave the mice a chemical that prevented the signalling in the anterior cingulate cortex from happening.

There is no correlation between the prefrontal cortex and appetite control. The team injected substances into the anterior cingulate cortex of a third group of mice that were similarly made to feel pain.

The brain's "feeding centre" is where the signals from the neuron's lead.

The microscopes confirmed the presence of these neurons in the mice. The appetites of the mice improved when the researchers stopped the activity in this cortex.

The mice that were not in pain ate less even if they had not eaten before the experiment.

The researchers wrote that they had traced the brain mechanisms behind appetite loss.

The brains of mice have been found to be similar to the brains of humans who are more likely to eat less and lose weight if they have chronic pain.

She believes that the same circuit could be found in humans.

The development of more efficient pain medication could be aided by these results.

Simon Luckman is a professor at the University of Manchester in the UK.

He says the results aren't surprising. The first step of the pathway is in a brain region that is well-known for pain processing, while the other steps are in regions that play a role in food intake. The increase in basic knowledge is important.

Nature Metabolism is published in a journal.