by Danilo di Diodoro
Research focused on the role of Neuropeptide Y, a substance involved in appetite. The brain of human beings is three times larger than that of primates and consumes many calories, especially fat
Humans particularly appreciate fatty and sweet foods, which, unfortunately, predispose to metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. Yet it is also thanks to the attraction towards this type of food that our distant ancestors may have developed a brain larger than that of other mammals, giving rise to an evolution that created a type of intelligence completely different from that of beings such as chimpanzees. and gorillas.
At the basis of the attraction towards this type of food there is a specific substance, called Neuropeptide Y, particularly abundant in a specific portion of the human brain, the Accumbens Nucleus. It is due to the presence of this peptide that humans feel so attracted towards fats and sweets and at the same time also towards substances that can generate addiction.
The push for evolution
The possible evolutionary importance of Neuropeptide Y indicated by comparative research carried out on human brain samples collected during autopsies, compared with samples belonging to different types of monkeys. The research was published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) by a group led by Mary Ann Raghanti of the Department of Anthropology and School of Biomedical Sciences at Kent State University. The researchers say: it is impossible to determine the precise order of events, but an intriguing possibility is that an increase in fat intake, stimulated by the abundant presence of Neuropeptide Y, may have played a primary role in providing humans with nutrients. necessary for the expansion of the brain which occurred during the Plio-Pleistocene period. The same mechanism could be responsible for the expansion of the brain reward systems that explain our ability to respond to stimuli such as food, sport, art, music and therefore represented a central creative force throughout the period of human evolution.
Our brain consumes a lot of calories
In fact, the human brain is truly unique when compared to that of other primates. three times larger than what should be expected in an anthropoid of our body mass and absorbs approximately 20 percent of the basal metabolic consumption of an adult and 66 percent of that of a child, say the authors of the study. This constant demand for energy requires stores represented by fat and glycogen and is very different from that of other non-human primates who spend no more than 9 percent of their metabolic energy on the brain. Consequently, a dietary intake of long-chain fats and polyunsaturated fatty acids (the so-called good fats) is of fundamental importance for brain development and for the maintenance of greater quantities of body fat compared to other primates.
He Neuropeptide Y
Neuropeptide Y is actually a molecule with many functions: important for stimulating appetite, but also for its capacity for neuroendocrine regulation in relation to the pituitary gland. It also has a neurotransmitter function in the autonomic nervous system and governs a series of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal processes. In the brain also present in the hypothalamus, amygdala and hippocampus, as well as, as mentioned, in the Nucleus Accumbens, a small formation important not only for the regulation of food intake but also for the sense of reward, for motivation , sexual behavior, substance addiction. It is also very likely that it is somehow involved in some mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression.
September 20, 2023 (changed September 20, 2023 | 09:01)
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