The Mechanism of the Gut-Brain Axis in Regulating Food Intake

Abstract

With the increasing prevalence of energy metabolism disorders such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and anorexia, the regulation of feeding has become the focus of global attention. The gastrointestinal tract is not only the site of food digestion and absorption but also contains a variety of appetite-regulating signals such as gut-brain peptides, short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), bile acids (BAs), bacterial proteins, and cellular components produced by gut microbes. While the central nervous system (CNS), as the core of appetite regulation, can receive and integrate these appetite signals and send instructions to downstream effector organs to promote or inhibit the body’s feeding behaviour. This review will focus on the gut-brain axis mechanism of feeding behaviour, discussing how the peripheral appetite signal is sensed by the CNS via the gut-brain axis and the role of the central “first order neural nuclei” in the process of appetite regulation. Here, elucidation of the gut-brain axis mechanism of feeding regulation may provide new strategies for future production practises and the treatment of diseases such as anorexia and obesity.

Getting clues from nature: the impact of grass hay on suckling piglets’ gastrointestinal growth and colonic microbiota

“…Other types of insoluble fiber, such as wheat bran, have been observed to speed up the gastric mobility. This acceleration plays a crucial role in the gut-brain axis, regulating appetite signals to activate the feed intake and behaviors, which might contribute to the result in the present study (Benini et al, 1995;Inui et al, 2004;Li et al, 2023). Furthermore, it also might be interesting to investigate if the impact of feeding hay depends on the birth weight of piglets in a study involving more litters.…”