A Snapshot seminar hosted by the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience.

Abstract: Gut feelings are an accepted part of our emotional life, yet the exact mechanisms behind them are poorly understood. Gut-brain signaling is well-known to control feeding behavior and metabolism. However, the impact of gut signaling to the brain extends into control of many other behaviors including anxiety. The focus of our work is to determine the impact of hormonal and neural gut to brain signaling on anxiety-like behavior. We found that many satiety gut hormones, for example, GLP-1, increase anxiety while a hunger hormone, ghrelin, reduces anxiety in a food-availability dependent manner. However, we also reveal that not all satiety hormones follow this pattern. We discovered that the vagus nerve signaling from the stomach to the brain, conveys necessary and sufficient information for maintenance of normal anxiety-like behavior. We investigate brain mechanisms and sites of action for the gut-brain control of anxiety using neuropharmacology, chemogenetics, virogenetics and transcriptomics. Our major translational aim is to reveal new anxiety therapies utilizing the novel gut-brain signaling pathways.

• Join Zoom Meeting: https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/95062143790?pwd=ZmJYVlBhejBKUUx0SGVxQ0tEd0Nldz09 
• Meeting ID: 950 6214 3790
• Passcode: 954548

Host: Johan Alsiö