Deciphering Visceral Instincts
- Date published: 2026-09-02
- Speakers: Diego Bohórquez (guest talk)
- Format: Guest talk
- Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXXYM3Z4fV0
- Topics: Mind and body
In one paragraph
Diego Bohórquez, who grew up in the Amazon region of Ecuador, explains how the gut senses what we eat and tells the brain in real time. His lab found that certain gut lining cells have long arms that connect to nerves; he named them neuropods. Silencing them leaves mice unable to tell sugar apart, and a microbial protein sensed by these cells reduces appetite, which the lab calls the neurobiotic sense.
Main ideas (plain words)
- Gut sensor cells looked different from the textbook picture: they have arms under the lining, and he named them neuropods.
- Rabies-tracing experiments showed neuropod cells connect physically to nerve fibers.
- When neuropods are silenced, mice become "blind" to sugar.
- Neuropod cells sense flagellin, a protein from bacterial tails, through the TLR5 receptor; that leads to release of a signaling molecule the captions call "PY" (likely PYY), which signals through the vagus nerve to reduce appetite. The talk's video calls this the neurobiotic sense.
Key quotes (word for word from YouTube's auto-generated captions)
"I often say that there are two things that are constantly moving us in uh life. The food that we eat and the people that we meet."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXXYM3Z4fV0&t=0s"eventually we gave them a name uh I call them neuropods"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXXYM3Z4fV0&t=1290s"if we silence the neuropods, the animal becomes literally blind uh to the sugar."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXXYM3Z4fV0&t=2580s"We call [music] this sense at the interface of the biota and the brain the neurobiotic sense."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXXYM3Z4fV0&t=3060sSource: YouTube auto-generated captions, speakers not labeled; wording is provisional. Timestamps point to the start of the 30-second stretch that holds the quote.