María de los Ángeles García, researcher and academic, who works on the role of glial cells: “Knowing the nutritional signals generated by glial cells allows us to understand the mechanisms and develop better drug therapies”

The academic and researcher María de los Ángeles García was part of the annual meeting of the Physiological Society that was held during the month of November. In it, she participated with a plenary speaking in depth about the nutritional signals generated by glia that impact eating behavior.

By Valentina Luza Carrión / Science in Chile.-The importance of the research that Dr. carries out, and that she explained in depth in the instance, lies in the fact that it has connotations that can lead to what is applied. One of the biggest novelties is the idea that the glial cell locally generates signals that impact, for example, the neurons that regulate eating behavior.

But what does this mean? And what is the glial cell? Ángeles explains that there are various types of glial cells that reside in the brain and that she is studying in particular the radial glia type of the hypothalamus that have unique morphological characteristics.

“They are capable of proliferating and giving rise to neurons that induce satiety, regulating eating behavior in order to maintain body weight, as a compensatory mechanism for a high-calorie diet,” he details in this regard.

To understand in greater detail, the researcher explains that these glial cells are called tanycytes and form the walls of the third ventricle, so in addition to contacting the cerebrospinal fluid, they contact the neurons that induce hunger and satiety.

“We have proven that these nutritional signals generated by the tanycytes when one eats produce a certain metabolite called lactate and this informs the neurons, activating them to induce satiety,” he explains.

Some relevant findings and indications

In this regard, the doctor comments that the research carried out in the Cellular Biology laboratory of the UdeC, verified that the neurons that produce satiety are activated by this metabolite and also that “During fasting, the tanycytes also produce and release other nutritional signals that inform the neurons on low energy, to induce hunger.

And he adds: “This signal is beta hydroxybutyrate and what we demonstrate is that it inhibits the neurons that induce satiety and stimulates those that induce hunger, so it is a closed circuit (…) we use demonstrations ranging from electrophysiology to behavior ”.

This, in her words, led her and her team to publish several scientific articles where they evaluated animal behavior thanks to a system that allowed them to measure microstructure and macrostructure parameters of intake.

“These two nutritional signals generated locally by the glia activate or inhibit the neurons, and we also inhibit the expression and function of the transporters involved in the output of these signals, specifically in the tanycytes, and we detect alterations in food intake,” he explains.

The importance of knowing these signals is that you get to understand the mechanisms and by understanding these mechanisms, drug therapies can be generated”.

What the team proposes is a pharmacological target: “This would inhibit the interaction between proteins that control the circuit, thus allowing the genesis of more signals that induce satiety to inhibit food intake.”

Regarding the instance of participation in the annual meeting, Dr. María de los Ángeles, comments that what is most salvaged from the instance is the exchange of knowledge with colleagues and students from various universities and answering their concerns.

“The number of questions they asked was amazing. Today the society of physiological science has a more comprehensive vision. For my work, this comprehensive vision is super important because it broadens the points of view”, she expresses.

In addition, one of the most important is to be able to combat obesity since it is considered an endemic disease that affects the country with great impact.

“We want to design a therapy that makes it possible to control obesity, and above all, transfer knowledge to young people so that hopefully from school they can become aware of the health risks that obesity and overweight imply,” he adds.

From his perspective, one of the greatest challenges in physiology is to achieve an integrative perspective among professionals of all ages: “This is what we need, especially at this time when we are talking about multidisciplinary work, physiology has a lot to offer here,” he concludes.