Effect Of Long-term Vagal Stimulation On Food Intake And Body Weight During Dietary Induced Obesity In Rats

Objectives1. This study was designed to assess vagal nerve stimulation effects on the food intake in obesity rats.2. To assess vagal nerve stimulation effects on the body weight and body fat in obesity rats.3. To assess vagal nerve stimulation effects on the neuropeptides in obesity rats.Material and Methods1. Eighteen DIO (dietary induced obesity) rats were randomly divided into three groups, groups A-C.2. All animals underwent implantation of a vagal nerve stimulator at the gastro-esophogeal junction.3. In group A, the stimulation was switched on, whereas stimulation was switched off in groups B. Group C were not undergo surgery.4. Food intake and body weight were registered in all groups.90days after, all animals were sacrificed to identify effects of implantation and stimulation on the vagus nerve.5. Dissecting and weighing epididymis.6. Use RT-PCR to detected neuropeptides which associated with apetite.7. A Student’ t-test and one-way analysis of variance were used to detect differences between groups.Results1. VNS attenuated body weight gain (124.3±15.5g vs263.1±16.8g; P=0.013) for stimulation and nonstimulation groups, respectively.2. VNS attenuated epididymis weight (15.9±2.3g vs22.7±2.6g; P=0.035) for stimulation and nonstimulation groups, respectively.3. VNS attenuated food consumption (1998.7±37.2g vs3312.6±40.9g; P=0.021) for stimulation and nonstimulation groups, respectively.4. VNS resulted in higher expression on the neuropeptides AgRP (P=0.027) and NPY(P=0.019) which encourage food intake and lower expression on the neuropeptides POMC (P=0.011) which suppress food intake.ConclusionThe stimulation protocol applied in this study may imitate the signal which released in eating procedure and was sufficient to cause changes in the food intake and body weight of DIO;...