I have been getting a deluge of requests to post some examples of the type of projects that have been selected. While it is a bit of a chore to track down the folks who got through and ask them for their project abstracts (most people are not so open minded about handing out unpublished research abstracts), I will try to do the best I can to get as many abstracts in as possible.
In this series, here is the first one by Dr. Suman Saurabh Chaudhary, who did this study in his 2nd Prof MBBS days in JIPMER and is pursuing a residency in Community Medicine at the same college now. He had been of immense help to me on the day of the KVPY interview. Despite the fact that we were competing for the same award, he was very generous with his advice and insights into how the KVPY system worked. This was invaluable for me because he came from an institute that had a tradition of KVPY awardees every year, unlike me, who was the first person to be selected from our neck in the woods! Anyways, enough bumbling, here is the abstract of the study. He published it in a Journal called “Biomedicine” as the first author eventually.
Effects of central injections of dopamine and estrogen on food intake and body weight in ovariectomized Wistar rats.
Suman Saurabh2, G. K. Pal1, Narasimha Rao1 and Pravati Pal1
1Department of Physiology, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry–605 006, INDIA.
2III MBBS student, JIPMER.
(Received: 22nd Dec 2006; Revised: 18th Feb 2006; Accepted: 3rd March 2007)
Corresponding author:
Suman Saurabh: E-mail: REDACTED
Abstract
Background: Hypothalamic centers are the mainstay of regulation of food and water intake and control of body weight. These centers are influenced by various endogenous chemicals. Estrogen and dopamine are known to be anorectic independently. But, no studies have been performed so far to assess their interaction following combined injection into ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) on control of food intake and body weight in rats.
Methods: This study was conducted in 24 female albino rats to assess the anorectic action of dopamine and estrogen injected into the VMH following ovariectomy, injected separately and combinely, through stereotaxically implanted cannulae. Estrogen and dopamine were injected in escalating doses of 0.5, 1, 2, 4 µg in two different groups of rats. Minimum effective doses of the chemical were injected combinely to study their additive effects.
Results: Basal 24 hr food intake and body weight were increased following ovariectomy. The minimum significant dose causing the reversal of weight gain was found to be 1 µg for both estrogen and dopamine separately. Combined injection of this dose produced significant anorexia and body weight loss which was greater than the individual doses (1 µg each) and comparable to the highest individual doses (4 µg each).
Conclusion: This study indicates that dopamine and estrogen can potentiate each others effects at a lower dose when administered together. This provides a future clinical application of these two chemicals in obesity management.
Key words: Body weight, Dopamine, Estrogen, Food intake, Ventromedial nucleus, Water intake.
I hope this helps you people out there!
Scepticemia 
thaks a lot….
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You are welcome…
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thnx a lot 🙂
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You are welcome!
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