The research involved leptin, the hormone that turns off hunger but fails to cross into the brain to regulate appetite in obese people.
According to Dr Susan Farr, principal investigator and associate research professor in the division of geriatric medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, the researchers have found that leptin also “affects the brain in other ways, compromising learning and memory.”
Dr Farr also explained that low levels of leptin could be linked to cognitive deficits in conditions such as type 2 diabetes.
Dr Farr and her research team tested the role of leptin in learning and memory using an animal model. They found that mice navigated a maze better after they received leptin.
Furthermore, mice with elevated levels of amyloid-beta protein, the brain plaques believed to cause Alzheimer’s disease, and impaired learning and memory were “super sensitive” to leptin.