Brain
Childhood junk food may leave lasting changes in brain circuits that guide eating, mouse study suggests
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Researchers at APC Microbiome Ireland at University College Cork report that early-life exposure to a high-fat, high-sugar diet altered feeding behavior and appetite-related brain pathways in mice into adulthood, even after the animals returned to a standard diet and normal body weight. The team also found that a specific Bifidobacterium strain and a prebiotic fiber mix helped mitigate some of these long-term effects.
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco report that higher levels of the iron-associated protein FTL1 in the hippocampus of older mice are tied to weaker neural connections and worse performance on cognitive tests. In the experiments, reducing FTL1 in older mice was associated with increased neuronal connectivity and improved memory performance, findings published in Nature Aging.