Research

Hormonal

GLP1R agonists (like liraglutide) suppress food intake by acting on LepRbGlp1r neurons, but this pathway alone is insufficient for significant body weight loss.

GLP-1 drugs like liraglutide work partly by activating a specific brain pathway (LepRbGlp1r) that tells you to eat less. However, this pathway alone doesn't account for all the weight loss, meaning other brain areas are also involved. This suggests these drugs are complex and work on multiple levels.

StrongQualifiesHIGH confidence
Restoration of Glp1r expression in LepRbGlp1r neurons in otherwise Glp1r-null mice enabled food intake suppression by the GLP1R agonist, liraglutide.
Alan C. Rupp et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 2023

Why this rating

Clear genetic reactivation experiments showing causality.

Source

Suppression of food intake by Glp1r/Lepr-coexpressing neurons prevents obesity in mouse models

Alan C. Rupp et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 2023

DOI 10.1172/jci157515

mechanism_onlyCited 53×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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