{"id":235374,"date":"2026-04-16T18:23:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/fat-cells-steer-flies-away-from-pathogen-tainted-food-through-a-newly-revealed-neural-circuit"},"modified":"2026-04-16T18:23:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:23:36","slug":"fat-cells-steer-flies-away-from-pathogen-tainted-food-through-a-newly-revealed-neural-circuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/fat-cells-steer-flies-away-from-pathogen-tainted-food-through-a-newly-revealed-neural-circuit","title":{"rendered":"Fat cells steer flies away from pathogen-tainted food through a newly revealed neural circuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If humans or animals eat something that causes them to feel unwell, they subsequently avoid this food source. Until now, it has been unclear precisely how this avoidance learning takes place. A new study shows that communication between the brain cells and fat cells could play a crucial role here. The participants from the Universities of Bonn and Tohoku (Japan) and University Hospital Bonn have revealed the previously unknown mechanism in the fruit fly Drosophila. It may also exist in a similar form in mammals and even in humans. The results have now been published<\/a> in the journal Neuron.<\/p>\n

Anyone who\u2019s ever had an upset stomach after eating a bad meatball knows just how much this experience can put you off them. Within research, this is also known as \u201cconditioned taste aversion\u201d: The brain registers the immune response to the bacteria and their toxins and concludes from this that the food source should be avoided in the future.<\/p>\n

It is not yet known how the immune system\u2019s discovery of the pathogens leads to a change in behavior. \u201cAs this learned food avoidance can be found in all species, we investigated this question in a model organism \u2013 the fruit fly Drosophila,\u201d explains Prof. Dr. Ilona Grunwald Kadow. \u201cWithin this model, we can clarify how the brain and body interact with each other to trigger an avoidance reaction that is vital for survival.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If humans or animals eat something that causes them to feel unwell, they subsequently avoid this food source. Until now, it has been unclear precisely how this avoidance learning takes place. A new study shows that communication between the brain cells and fat cells could play a crucial role here. The participants from the Universities [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235374","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=235374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}