{"id":222964,"date":"2025-10-06T11:11:48","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T16:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/fat-particles-could-be-key-to-treating-metabolic-brain-disorders"},"modified":"2025-10-06T11:11:48","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T16:11:48","slug":"fat-particles-could-be-key-to-treating-metabolic-brain-disorders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/fat-particles-could-be-key-to-treating-metabolic-brain-disorders","title":{"rendered":"Fat particles could be key to treating metabolic brain disorders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/fat-particles-could-be-key-to-treating-metabolic-brain-disorders.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Evidence challenging the long-held assumption that neuronal function in the brain is solely powered by sugars has given researchers new hope of treating debilitating brain disorders. A University of Queensland study led by Dr. Merja Joensuu and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s42255-025-01367-x\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Metabolism<\/i> showed that neurons also use fats for fuel as they fire off the signals for human thought and movement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor decades, it was widely accepted that <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/neurons\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">neurons<\/a> relied exclusively on glucose to fuel their functions in the brain,\u201d Dr. Joensuu said. \u201cBut our research shows fats are undoubtedly a crucial part of the neuron\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/energy+metabolism\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">energy metabolism<\/a> in the brain and could be a key to repairing and restoring function when it breaks down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Joensuu from the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology along with lab members Ph.D. candidate Nyakuoy Yak and Dr. Saber Abd Elkader from UQ\u2019s Queensland Brain Institute set out to examine the relationship of a particular gene (DDHD2) to hereditary spastic paraplegia 54 (HSP54).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evidence challenging the long-held assumption that neuronal function in the brain is solely powered by sugars has given researchers new hope of treating debilitating brain disorders. A University of Queensland study led by Dr. Merja Joensuu and published in Nature Metabolism showed that neurons also use fats for fuel as they fire off the signals [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,4,47,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-nanotechnology","category-neuroscience","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}