Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC scientist identifies a connection in the brain between stress and emotional eating
In a study published in Nature Communications, Assistant Professor Sora Shin describes the role of a molecule in the brain responsible for triggering overconsumption of comfort foods after a threatening event
IMAGE:
(FROM LEFT) SORA SHIN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT THE FRALIN BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT VTC; HER FORMER RESEARCH ASSOCIATE IN-JEE YOU; AND GRADUATE STUDENT YEEUN BAE AUTHORED A PAPER PUBLISHED IN NATURE COMMUNICATIONS THAT IDENTIFIES A CONNECTION IN THE BRAIN BETWEEN THREATENING EVENTS AND THE STRONG DESIRE TO OVEREAT HIGH-FAT FOODS.
view moreCREDIT: PHOTO BY CLAYTON METZ FOR VIRGINIA TECH.
If you’ve had a near miss accident in your car or suffered the intimidation of a menacing person, you’ve probably felt it — a psychological reaction to a threat called a fight or flight response. Your heart rate climbs, anxiety washes over you, you might shake or sweat.
But hours after that stress passes, you may feel another response — a powerful desire for comfort food, that highly processed, high-fat stuff you know isn’t good for you. It can relieve stress and tension and provide a sense of control. Emotional eating following a stress-triggering interaction is familiar to many of us, and to scientists as well.
But how a threat signals your brain to want comfort food has been unknown.
Now, a Virginia Tech scientist has pinpointed a molecule found in a region of the brain called the hypothalamus that is connected to changes in the brain that lead to emotional overeating. Sora Shin, assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, and her research team described the discovery in a paper published Oct. 28 in Nature Communications.
“We don’t always eat because we are hungry and we have certain physical needs,” said Shin, who is also an assistant professor in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Whenever we get stressed or feel some threat, then it can also trigger our eating motivation. We think this molecule is the culprit.”
Shin and her research team began their study by investigating a small molecule, Proenkephalin. This molecule is common in multiple parts of the brain, but little research had examined its role in the hypothalamus. Shin suspected it played a role in stress and eating because the hypothalamus is a center for regulating eating behavior.
The lab exposed mice to the odor of cat feces. The odor of a natural predator triggered a threat response in the mice, and 24 hours later, the mice exhibited a negative emotional state, overeating behavior, and neurons in their brains showed sensitivity to consumption of high-fat foods.
To confirm the role of the molecule in stress-induced eating, the researchers activated the same neurons artificially with light stimulating a genetically encoded molecule expressed in the neuronal cell’s membrane, without the predator scent, and saw a similar response. In addition, when they exposed the mice to the cat odor and quieted the reaction of the neurons expressing that molecule with the same technique, the mice showed no negative emotional state and didn’t overeat.
“So something about this molecule itself is very critical to inducing overconsumption after the threat,” Shin said.
The discovery points toward a possible target for therapy to alleviate emotionally triggered eating.
“We have much more to learn about this molecule,” Shin said, “but we found its location and it could be a good starting point.”
Shin’s first-authors on the study are In-Jee You, a former research associate at the institute, and Yeeun Bae, a human nutrition, foods, and exercise graduate student working in her lab.
Shin’s research is supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Seale Innovation Fund, and the integrated Translational Health Research Institute of Virginia. Shin is a former iTHRIV scholar.
JOURNAL
Nature Communications
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Lateral hypothalamic proenkephalin neurons drive threat-induced overeating associated with a negative emotional state
University of Louisville awarded $11.5 million for research to prevent and treat eating disorders
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CHERI LEVINSON, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE. PHOTO BY BEN MARCUM PHOTOGRAPHY.
view moreCREDIT: BEN MARCUM PHOTOGRAPHY
A University of Louisville researcher has been awarded $11.5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to better understand and address some of the most devastating effects of eating disorders.
Eating disorders affect an estimated 9% of Americans — nearly 30 million people — and can impact a person’s eating behaviors and perceptions about food and their bodies. The UofL research, backed by three grants, will investigate how eating disorders may develop in childhood and adolescence, their contribution to suicidal behaviors and how innovative personalized treatment may offer hope.
“UofL has made a longstanding commitment to groundbreaking research and discovery that makes a positive impact on our world,” said President Kim Schatzel. “This is research that can save and improve the lives of millions of Americans and many, many more around the world impacted by eating disorders.”
The work is led by researcher Cheri Levinson, who specializes in the study and intervention of eating and anxiety disorders. The key, she said, is a personalized approach to diagnosis and treatment, recognizing that these disorders affect people of all different ages, ethnicities, gender identities and backgrounds, and individualizing treatment to each specific person.
“Despite the high prevalence of these conditions, there are few available treatment and prevention options,” said Levinson, an associate professor in the UofL College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Eating Anxiety Treatment (EAT) Lab. “This work not only will create options, but opens this whole possibility for treatments that are personalized based on the individual. Because eating disorders don’t just affect one kind of person and there are a multitude of different factors that can influence them.”
Through an NIH research project grant totaling nearly $4 million, Levinson’s team will study how eating disorders develop in childhood and beyond, with the hope their findings can help avert the large personal and societal costs associated with childhood onset and chronic disorders. Recent studies show more than one in five kids worldwide may show signs of disordered eating.
A second project grant, also nearly $4 million, will identify patterns of anorexia nervosa — an eating disorder characterized by a fear of gaining weight — that contribute to suicide risk, with data providing a model of personalized psychiatric medicine and new methods of prevention and treatment. Currently, patients with anorexia have a suicide risk 18 times higher than those without an eating disorder.
The third grant, a prestigious NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, also worth nearly $4 million across two phases, will further the creation and dissemination of a novel personalized treatment for eating disorders and integrate social determinants of health (food insecurity, racism) into treatment. The New Innovator Award, part of NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, supports unusually innovative research from early-career investigators who are within 10 years of their final degree or clinical residency. Levinson is the first from UofL and the first studying eating disorders to receive this award.
“Our mission at the College of Arts and Sciences is to improve life in the Commonwealth, including by creating new knowledge through groundbreaking research and innovation,” said Dayna Touron, the college’s dean. “Dr. Levinson’s work will undoubtedly improve the lives of millions living with eating disorders, and we are very proud to count her among our faculty.”
These grants are the culmination of years of groundbreaking work by Levinson and her team, for which they earned a UofL Trailblazer Award in early 2023. The research has also received support through UofL’s Office of Research and Innovation, including mentoring through the Ascending Stars Fellows Program for promising mid-career faculty.
Work to develop a companion personalized treatment application and virtual reality technology has also been supported by the office’s Innovation and Commercialization and UofL New Ventures teams. This includes patenting, entrepreneurial coaching and training and financial support through two innovation development programs: KYNETIC, focused on furthering biomedical technologies, and PRePARE, focused on technologies that address a health or societal problem resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“UofL has built a strong and vibrant ecosystem and supports for important research, like this, that can improve and save lives,” said Kevin Gardner, UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation. “We’re so proud of the work Dr. Levinson and her team are doing and the positive impacts it will have across the U.S. and the globe.”
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