Danish scientists have used GLP-1 drugs as a ‘Trojan horse’ to sneak molecules into mice brains to promote neuroplasticity (change brain plasticity) and double weight loss results.
Their findings suggest GLP-1 drugs ‘could leak through the permeable areas of the blood-brain barrier as they carry these plasticity-promoting molecules’, reported medicalnewstoday.com.
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen, whose findings were published in the journal Nature, used molecules of NMDA receptor agonist MK-801, which affects neuroplasticity in the hypothalamus and the brain stem, to promote brain plasticity.
Senior author Professor Christoffer Clemmensen explained: ‘The molecule we attached to GLP-1 affects the so- called glutamatergic neurotransmitter system and, in fact, other studies with human participants suggest this family of compounds has significant weight loss potential.
‘The thinking is that using a drug to lower body weight, and then coupling it with another drug that consolidates the neuronal wiring at this adjusted lower weight, might help patients maintain a lower weight.’
In other words, GLP-1 medications can cause the body to lose weight, but enhancing neuroplasticity could help retrain the brain to accept that new weight as the new normal.
Professor Darleen Sandoval at the University of Colorado (not involved in the research) cautioned that translating any findings from a mouse study to humans can be concerning, but told medicalnewstoday.com: ‘However, it is interesting that the GLP-1 system is extremely translatable from mouse to human, at least in terms of the main endpoints of interest here – food intake and body weight.’
