瑞士联邦理工学院Denis Burdakov和Daria Peleg-Raibstein课题组取得一项新突破。他们的研究发现食欲素神经元介导抵抗诱惑的自愿运动。相关论文于2024年8月6日发表在《自然—神经科学》杂志上。

该研究团队开发了一项任务，使他们能够研究老鼠如何在滚轮跑和其他自愿活动(如吃美味的食物)之间自由快速地交替。当有多种选择时，老鼠选择在没有任何外部奖励的情况下花大量时间跑轮，即使添加了美味的食物作为选择，它们也会保持这种行为。

对食欲和完成过程的相关分析表明，下丘脑下丘脑下丘脑分泌素/食欲素神经元(HONs)体现了这种对轮式跑步的偏好。HON操控对滚轮跑和进食的影响强烈依赖于情景，在两种选择都可用的情况下影响最大。总的来说，这些数据表明，HON 活动能够进行进食和运动之间的仲裁，从而选择运动而非进食。

研究人员表示，尽管体育锻炼对健康有众所周知的好处，但许多人运动不足。目前还不清楚是什么让锻炼比其他选择更重要。

附：英文原文

Title: Orexin neurons mediate temptation-resistant voluntary exercise

Author: Tesmer, Alexander L., Li, Xinyang, Bracey, Eva, Schmandt, Cyra, Polania, Rafael, Peleg-Raibstein, Daria, Burdakov, Denis

Issue&Volume: 2024-08-06

Abstract: Despite the well-known health benefits of physical activity, many people underexercise; what drives the prioritization of exercise over alternative options is unclear. We developed a task that enabled us to study how mice freely and rapidly alternate between wheel running and other voluntary activities, such as eating palatable food. When multiple alternatives were available, mice chose to spend a substantial amount of time wheel running without any extrinsic reward and maintained this behavior even when palatable food was added as an option. Causal manipulations and correlative analyses of appetitive and consummatory processes revealed this preference for wheel running to be instantiated by hypothalamic hypocretin/orexin neurons (HONs). The effect of HON manipulations on wheel running and eating was strongly context-dependent, being the largest in the scenario where both options were available. Overall, these data suggest that HON activity enables an eat–run arbitration that results in choosing exercise over food.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-024-01696-2

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01696-2