Browsing by Author "Pérez Leighton, Claudio"

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    Calcium-sensing receptor in adipose tissue: possible association with obesity-related elevated autophagy
    (2020) Mattar, P.; Sanhueza, S.; Yuri, G.; Briones, L.; Pérez Leighton, Claudio; Rudich, A.; Lavandero, S.; Cifuentes, M.
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    Increased BMI is associated with an altered decision-making process during healthy food choices in males and females
    (Academic Press, 2025) Larenas Barrera, Gabriela Paz; Luarte, L.; Kerr, B.; Ossandón, Tomás; Cortés Mora, Víctor Antonio; Baudrand Biggs, René; Pérez Leighton, Claudio
    Unhealthy diets (rich in calories, sugar, fat, and sodium) are a major cause of obesity. Why individuals struggle to make healthy food choices remains unclear. This study examined how body mass index, biological sex, and eating context influence food attribute perception, the food choice process, and the percentage of healthy food choices. In an online study, males and females with and without obesity (n = 910) rated food images for healthiness and tastiness and made food choices after prompts directing them to choose foods they considered healthy (healthy prompt) or to choose as they would in their daily lives (typical prompt), which aimed to model healthy and typical eating contexts. When foods were classified as healthy or unhealthy using nutritional labeling information, all participants rated healthy foods with larger healthiness ratings, but females rated healthy foods as healthier and tastier than males. Still, participants with obesity had fewer healthy choices (i.e., choosing the food with the largest healthiness rating) regardless of sex and prompt. Further, tastiness differences were more relevant than healthiness differences during healthy food choices among participants with obesity, and more so after the typical prompt. On the contrary, healthiness differences were more relevant among participants with healthy weight regardless of prompt type. Our findings highlight the importance of eating contexts in how individuals use their perception of food attributes during healthy food choices and suggest that increasing the presence of healthy prompts and perceived tastiness of healthy foods may promote healthy food choices among individuals with obesity.
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    Influencia del contexto e información nutricional en la elección entre alimentos saludables y no saludables
    (2022) Caballero Vivanco, Sara; Pérez Leighton, Claudio; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Escuela de Medicina
    Las personas se ven enfrentadas a un conflicto al tener que elegir entre alimentos palatables no saludables y saludables no tan sabrosos, pero no es claro como el contexto de elección y la información nutricional modulan este conflicto. En esta investigación se realizó un estudio online donde los participantes tuvieron que elegir entre imágenes de alimentos con y sin sellos en 3 contextos, entendiendo contexto como la intención de la persona al elegir el alimento. Estos contextos eran: salud (elegir alimentos que comerían para mantenerse sano), deseo (elegir alimentos que comerían si nada los detuviera) y típico (elegir alimentos que comerían en su vida diaria). Se encontró que el contexto es el factor que más influye en la efectividad de los sellos. Los sellos disminuyen el conflicto en elegir alimentos sin sellos frente a alimentos con sellos en todos los contextos, pero sólo en el contexto de salud los sellos aumentan el conflicto al elegir el alimento no saludable.
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    Noise-induced sleep disruption increases weight gain and decreases energy metabolism in female rats
    (2019) Coborn, J.E.; Lessie, R.E.; Sinton, C.M.; Rance, N.E.; Pérez Leighton, Claudio; Teske, J.A.
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    Palmitic acid reduces the autophagic flux in hypothalamic neurons by impairing autophagosome-lysosome fusion and endolysosomal dynamics
    (2020) Hernández Cáceres, María Paz; Cereceda, K.; Hernández, S.; Li, Y.; Rivera Reyes, Patricia Ximena; Toledo Valenzuela, Lilian Alejandra; Cifuentes Araneda, Flavia Dominique; Pérez Leighton, Claudio; Bertocchi, Cristina; Morselli, Eugenia; Narro, C.; Silva, P.; Avalos, Y.; Jara, C.; Burgos, P.; Lagos, P.; Clegg, D. J.; Criollo, A.; Tapia Rojas, C.; Burgos, P. V.
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    Preoperative liking and wanting for sweet beverages as predictors of body weight loss after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy
    (2020) Pérez Leighton, Claudio; Hamm, J. D.; Shechter, A.; Tamura, S.; Laferrére, B.; Pi Sunyer, X.; Albu, J.; Greenberg, D.; Kissileff, H. R.
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    Preventive leptin administration protects against sepsis through improving hypotension, tachycardia, oxidative stress burst, multiple organ dysfunction, and increasing survival
    (2018) Vallejos, Alejandro; Olivares, Pedro; Varela, Diego; Echeverria, Cesar; Cabello Verrugio, Claudio Alejandro; Pérez Leighton, Claudio; Simon, Felipe
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    Role of the Mitophagy Protein PINK1 in Hypothalamic Neurons: Regulation of Energy Balance and Glucose Homeostasis
    (2024) Díaz Castro, Francisco Leopoldo; Pérez Leighton, Claudio; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas
    The mediobasal hypothalamus (MBH), particularly the arcuate nucleus (ARC), is a brain region essential for regulating energy balance, glucose metabolism, and feeding behavior. Hypothalamic neurons adapt to different metabolic challenges, such as fasting or high-fat diet (HFD) consumption, to maintain energy homeostasis. Mitochondria contribute to this process by undergoing reshaping, rebuilding, and recycling— processes that together are known as mitochondrial dynamics. Mitophagy, the process of recycling mitochondria through autophagy, ensures the selective removal of damaged mitochondria, maintaining mitochondrial and cellular function under basal metabolic conditions or during metabolic stress. Despite its importance in mitochondrial and cellular function, the function of mitophagy in hypothalamic neurons and their role in regulating energy balance remains poorly understood. This thesis aimed to elucidate the role of mitophagy in hypothalamic neurons, focusing on its impact during fasting and HFD-induced obesity. We observed that both fasting and HFD altered mitophagy-related genes and protein levels in the MBH. Notably, the mRNA levels of the mitophagy protein PINK1, the main regulator of mitophagy, were lower in HFD mice compared to control mice, correlating with impaired fasting-induced food intake. To further explore this, we downregulated PINK1 in AgRP and POMC neurons. PINK1 knockdown in AgRP neurons, but not in POMC neurons, increased body weight, impaired glucose metabolism, and altered adiposity despite no changes in basal or fasting-induced food intake. Experiments in a hypothalamic neuronal cell line revealed that PINK1 is essential for starvation-induced mitophagy. Collectively, these findings show that PINK1 is necessary for maintaining hypothalamic neuronal function and metabolic homeostasis.