Latest Neuropeptides Stories

Having trouble with your marriage? Take a pill!  Believe it or not, this could happen, says the researcher who is examining the chemical composition of love.Larry Young states that his ultimate goal is not a love potion but hopes to find information on conditions like autism, which limits the natural ability to create social attachments, by investigating brain chemicals connected to emotional attachment."Biologists may soon be able to reduce certain mental states associated with...

The potential of the appetite suppressing hormone -- leptin -- may be realized after all, U.S. researchers say. The discovery of leptin, an appetite-suppressing hormone secreted by fat tissue, created great hopes for an effective treatment for obesity, but it was found the obese are unresponsive to leptin due to leptin resistance in the brain. The study, published in Cell Metabolism, found two chaperones -- 4-PBA or TUDCA -- increase leptin sensitivity as much as 10-fold and resulted in...

Swiss researchers said on Tuesday, that the "love" hormone linked to feelings of sexual pleasure, bonding and maternal care also appears to help us recognize familiar faces.Peter Klaver of the University of Zurich and colleagues reported that men given oxytocin more accurately recalled images of familiar faces but the hormone did not help them recognize inanimate objects.Researchers said the hormone somehow strengthens the brain's neural networks involved in social memory and may...

Researchers from Duke University Medical Center have identified a variation in a particular gene that increases susceptibility to early coronary artery disease. For years, scientists have known that the devastating, early-onset form of the disease was inherited, but they knew little about the gene(s) responsible until now. The results are published January 2 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.In a previous study, a region on chromosome 7 was linked to coronary artery disease (CAD). More...

For those who want to lose weight, aerobic exercise is better at suppressing appetite than non-aerobic exercise, British researchers have found. David J. Stensel of Loughborough University in England and colleagues said a vigorous 60-minute workout on a treadmill affects the release of two key appetite hormones, ghrelin and peptide YY, while 90 minutes of weight lifting only affects the level of ghrelin. The researchers said ghrelin is the only hormone known to stimulate appetite, while...

A team of scientists from the University of Cambridge and the University of Cukurova in Turkey have taken a major step to understanding how the brain controls the onset of puberty.The research, published in this week's Nature Genetics, identified the hormone Neurokinin B as a critical part of the control system that switches on the master regulator of human puberty. Although Neurokinin B was previously known to be present in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls puberty, its...

A vigorous 60-minute workout on a treadmill affects the release of two key appetite hormones, ghrelin and peptide YY, while 90 minutes of weight lifting affects the level of only ghrelin, according to a new study. Taken together, the research shows that aerobic exercise is better at suppressing appetite than non-aerobic exercise and provides a possible explanation for how that happens.This line of research may eventually lead to more effective ways to use exercise to help control weight,...

Once hailed as a miracle weight-loss drug, Fen-phen was removed from the market more than a decade ago for inducing life-threatening side effects, including heart valve lesions. Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center are trying to understand how Fen-phen behaves in the brain in order to develop safer anti-obesity drugs with fewer side effects.  In a study appearing in the Nov. 25 issue of Neuron, the researchers define a circuit in the brain that explains the ways fenfluramine, a...

Researchers have uncovered information that may lead to a new medical treatment for nicotine addiction.Cigarette smoking is one of the most widespread preventable causes of death and disease in developed countries. Annually, the habit is responsible for about 440,000 deaths and $160 billion in annual health-related costs nationwide.The neuropeptide hypocretin-1 (Orexin A) may start a series of reactions in the body that maintains tobacco addiction in smokers. Targeting the chemical could...

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, November 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Debiopharm Group (Debiopharm), a global biopharmaceutical development specialist that focuses on serious medical conditions and particularly oncology, announced today that Debiovision Inc., its Canadian affiliate, filed its Complete Response to the approvable letter received from the United States (U.S.) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Sanvar(R), or Debio 8609 (vapreotide acetate). The immediate release formulation of Sanvar(R), a...