Dr. Sung II Park, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, was recently awarded the 2018 NARSAD Young Investigator Award for his work to treat obesity using a novel approach.
Park is proposing to treat obesity by enhancing the activity of neural circuits in the brain that suppress appetite. This research would create a way to feel satisfied that is well beyond those of existing technologies.
“In the United States, one-third of adults are diagnosed with eating disorders such as obesity, which leads to profound debilitation for millions of people,” Park said. “The economic impact of these disorders is linked with direct medical costs, productivity costs, transportation costs and human capital costs. It is estimated that over $500 billion a year is spent in health care for eating disorders, and the burden on society is huge.”
The current available treatments for obesity are bariatric procedures, such as gastric bypass, that consist of restricting the capacity of the stomach in order to suppress appetite. These methods often have undesirable side effects and do not treat the underlying cause of obesity. Ultimately, they act as a Band-Aid to a larger problem.
The act of stopping when you are full is in a large way activated by feedback from the gut to the brain. Instinctive signals from the gut activate neurons in the nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) via the vagus nerve, which is the longest nerve in the cranium.
“A critical barrier to progress in understanding of mechanisms by which neural circuits suppress appetite is insufficient understanding of how the complex feeding loop, the gut to vagus nerve to NTS, works to regulate energy homeostasis,” Park said.
In particular, Park is looking at vagus afferent fibers within the brain’s neural network, which are fibers that carry nerve impulses from stimuli, such as food and hunger, toward the central nervous system and brain.
For this project, Park is working alongside an interdisciplinary team from the University of Washington that includes renowned researcher Dr. Richard Palmiter.
The NARSAD grant is one of the highest distinctions in the field of mental health research and is supported by the Brain and Behavior Foundation, which is committed to alleviating the suffering caused by mental illness by awarding grants that will lead to advances and breakthroughs in scientific research. NARSAD is an acronym for the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, the former name for the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.