They established that a population of brain cells called 'tanycytes' behave like stem cells and add new neurons to the appetite-regulating circuitry of the mouse brain after birth and into adulthood.I just want to say it's a metabolic disorder, not an eating disorder. (And one set of tanycytes do seem to connect to the lateral hypothalamus where orexin cells are.)
Lead researcher Dr Mohammad K. Hajihosseini, from UEA's school of Biological Sciences, said: "Loss or malfunctioning of neurons in the hypothalamus is the prime cause of eating disorders such as obesity."
But then there's this-
"The next step is to define the group of genes and cellular processes that regulate the behaviour and activity of tanycytes. This information will further our understanding of brain stem cells and could be exploited to develop drugs that can modulate the number or functioning of appetite-regulating neurons.Drugs drugs, druggy druggy drugs. It's always about the drugs.
I spent about a minute searching and found this:
In adult mice, tanycytes give rise to hypothalamic regulatory neurons in response to a high-fat diet.
Now, I'm not saying that's applicable to humans, but it does seem those cells are diet sensitive.
