{"id":4239,"date":"2018-06-13T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/that-gut-instinct-may-have-been-the-gps-of-human-ancestors\/"},"modified":"2023-04-19T11:08:05","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T18:08:05","slug":"gut-tells-brain-where-to-find-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/gut-tells-brain-where-to-find-food\/","title":{"rendered":"That \u2018gut instinct\u2019 may have been the GPS of human ancestors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n    \n            \n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-hero \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-hero\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n<div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--image\">\n\n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n              \n      <img\n                            data-src=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/story-2824-768x432.jpg\"\n          data-srcset=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/story-2824-768x432.jpg 768w\"          data-sizes=\"(min-width:1200px) 75vw, (min-width:768px) 83vw, 100vw\"          class=\"lazyload\"\n        \n                  alt=\"That \u2018gut instinct\u2019 may have been the GPS of human ancestors\"\n        \n        \n                                      \/>\n\n    \n    \n  \n  \n\n<\/div>\n  \n      <div class=\"image-caption\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  Neurobiology researchers at USC Dornsife find a connection between the gut and the brain&#8217;s memory center via the vagus nerve.\n\n\n<\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  \n  <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n          <nav aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\" class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n        <ul>\n                      <li><a 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streets, the d&eacute;cor and the table where they sat. A new USC Dornsife study in <i>Nature Communications<\/i> gives a possible explanation for food&rsquo;s prominence in memory.<\/p>\n<p>The body&rsquo;s longest nerve, the vagus nerve, is the autobahn between what scientists have referred to as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/gut-second-brain\/\" target=\"_blank\">two brains<\/a> &mdash; the one in your head and the other in your gastrointestinal tract. &nbsp;The nerve is key for telling you the tank is full and to put the fork down because it helps transmit biochemical signals from the stomach to the most primitive part of the brain, the brainstem.<\/p>\n<p>But in this animal study, researchers may have found a greater purpose behind this complex circuitry involving the vagus nerve. This &ldquo;gut-brain axis&rdquo; may help you remember where you ate by directing signals to another part of the brain, the hippocampus &mdash; the memory center.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Following our stomach <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The scientists believe that this gut instinct &mdash; this connection between spatial awareness and food &mdash; is likely a neurobiological mechanism that dates back to an age when the definition of fast food was a herd of deer running away from the nomadic hunters who tracked them.<\/p>\n<p>Back then especially, it would be critical for the gut to work with the brain like a Waze or Google Maps navigation app, said <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/cf\/bisc\/faculty_display.cfm?Person_ID=1043599\" target=\"_blank\">Scott Kanoski<\/a>, an assistant professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife and corresponding author of the paper. Those wandering early humans could remember a site where they had found and collected food, and return repeatedly for more.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;When animals find and eat a meal, for instance, the vagus nerve is activated and this global positioning system is engaged,&rdquo; Kanoski said. &ldquo;It would be advantageous for an animal to remember their external environment so that they could have food again.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Disruption disorients the internal compass <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To examine this gut-brain connection, the research team conducted the study on rats. They saw that rats with their gut-brain vagus nerve pathway disconnected could not remember information about their environment.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We saw impairments in hippocampal-dependent memory when we cut off the communication between the gut and the brain,&rdquo; said lead author Andrea Suarez, a Ph.D. candidate in biological sciences. &ldquo;These memory deficits were coupled with harmful neurobiological outcomes in the hippocampus.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, the disconnected pathway affected markers in the brain that are key for the growth of new neural connections and new brain cells.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>However, it did not appear to affect the rats&rsquo; anxiety levels or their weight, the scientists noted.<\/p>\n<p>The scientists wrote that their findings may raise an important and timely medical question: Could bariatric surgeries or other therapies that block gut-to-brain signaling affect memory?<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the study<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The study was supported by a National Institutes of Health grant to Kanoski (DK104897) and to study co-author Guillame de Lartigue at Yale University (DK094871).<\/p>\n<p>Other co-authors were Ted M. Hsu, Clarissa M. Liu, Emily Noble, Alyssa Cortella, Emily Nakamoto, and Joel Hahn, all of biological sciences at USC Dornsife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A USC Dornsife study reveals that the nerve connecting the gut to the brain is key for remembering where food can be found. <strong>[2 \u00bc min read]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,17],"tags":[481],"class_list":["post-4239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty","category-student","tag-scott-kanoski"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>That \u2018gut instinct\u2019 may have been the GPS of human ancestors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/gut-tells-brain-where-to-find-food\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"That \u2018gut instinct\u2019 may have been the GPS of human ancestors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A USC Dornsife study reveals that the nerve connecting the gut to the brain is key for remembering where food can be found. 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