Neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute have actually traced neural pathways that connect the brain to the stomach, providing a biological system to discuss how stress can promote ulcer development.
The findings, published this week in the Procedures of the National Academy of Sciences, develop a scientific basis for the brain‘s influence over organ function and stress the importance of the brain-body connection.
Previously, research checking out the gut-brain interaction has actually mostly concentrated on the influence of the gut and its microbiome on the brain. It’s not a one-way street– the brain also affects stomach function.
” Pavlov demonstrated several years ago that the central nerve system uses environmental signals and previous experience to generate anticipatory responses that promote effective food digestion,” said Peter Strick, Ph.D., Brain Institute scientific director and chair of neurobiology at Pitt. “And we have long understood that every boost in unemployment and its associated tension is accompanied by a boost in death rates from stomach ulcers“
To find brain regions that manage the gut, Strick and his coauthor David Levinthal, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at Pitt, utilized a strain of rabies virus to track connections from the brain to the stomach.
After being injected into the stomach of a rat, the viral tracer made its method back to the brain by hopping from nerve cell to neuron– using the same trick that rabies infection utilizes to penetrate the brain after entering the body through a bite or scratch– to reveal the brain locations that exert control over the stomach.
