Obesity leads to altered energy metabolism and reduced insulin sensitivity of cells. The so-called"anti-obesity drugs" are increasingly used to treat obesity and have caused tremendous interest, especially in the USA. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne, Germany, have now shown in people with obesity that reduced insulin sensitivity affects learning of sensory associations.
But what happens when the body's insulin sensitivity is reduced due to obesity? Does this change our brain activity, our ability to learn associations and thus our behaviour? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research have now measured how well the learning of associations works in participants with normal body weight and in participants with obesity , and if this learning process is influenced by the anti-obesity drug liraglutide.
"These findings are of fundamental importance. We show here that basic behaviours such as associative learning depend not only on external environmental conditions but also on the body's metabolic state. So, whether someone has overweight or not also determines how the brain learns to associate sensory signals and what motivation is generated.