News Finding: "Our data clearly suggests that obesity and the Na/K-ATPase oxidant amplification loop plays a role in neurodegeneration," said first author Rebecca Pratt, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of biomedical research at Marshall University.
Paper Finding: Such changes were also observed in previous reports, even in a mouse strain which did not gain excessive amounts of weight 3 .
News Context: The researchers were able to successfully demonstrate through decreased adiposity and an improved metabolic profile the therapeutic potential of targeting NaKtide to the adipocytes. "Our data clearly suggests that obesity and the Na/K-ATPase oxidant amplification loop plays a role in neurodegeneration," said first author Rebecca Pratt, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of biomedical research at Marshall University. "Even targeting NaKtide to adipocytes alone still showed a whole-body effect, which highlights the much larger role that adipocytes play in obesity and whole body homeostasis."
Paper Context: Specifically, animals given the WD demonstrated marked reductions in activity level and calculated energy expenditure. Such changes were also observed in previous reports, even in a mouse strain which did not gain excessive amounts of weight 3 . We found that these behavioral changes were strongly associated with changes in brain D2 receptor expression and tyrosine hydroxylase expression, confirmed through both immunofluorescence and western blot.