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Analysis of institutional authors

Lizarbe, BlancaAuthor

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November 4, 2021
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Article

The short-chain fatty acid acetate reduces appetite via a central homeostatic mechanism

Publicated to: Nature Communications. 5 3611- - 2014-04-29 5(), DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4611

Authors:

Frost, Gary; Sleeth, Michelle L.; Sahuri-Arisoylu, Meliz; Lizarbe, Blanca; Cerdan, Sebastian; Brody, Leigh; Anastasovska, Jelena; Ghourab, Samar; Hankir, Mohammed; Zhang, Shuai; Carling, David; Swann, Jonathan R.; Gibson, Glenn; Viardot, Alexander; Morrison, Douglas; Thomas, E. Louise; Bell, Jimmy D.;
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Affiliations

Inst Invest Biomed Madrid Alberto Sols CSIC UAM, Lab Imaging & Spect Magnet Resonance LISMAR, Madrid 28029, Spain - Author
Scottish Univ, Environm Res Ctr, Stable Isotope Biochem Lab, Glasgow G75 0QF, Lanark, Scotland - Author
Univ London Imperial Coll Sci Technol & Med, Fac Med, Dept Investigat Med, Div Diabet Endocrinol & Metab,Nutr & Dietet Res G, London W12 0NN, England - Author
Univ London Imperial Coll Sci Technol & Med, MRC, Ctr Clin Sci, Cellular Stress Grp, London W12 0NN, England - Author
Univ London Imperial Coll Sci Technol & Med, MRC, Ctr Clin Sci, Metab & Mol Imaging Grp, London W12 0NN, England - Author
Univ Reading, Dept Food & Nutr Sci, Food Microbial Sci Unit, Reading RG6 6AP, Berks, England - Author
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Abstract

Increased intake of dietary carbohydrate that is fermented in the colon by the microbiota has been reported to decrease body weight, although the mechanism remains unclear. Here we use in vivo C-11-acetate and PET-CT scanning to show that colonic acetate crosses the blood-brain barrier and is taken up by the brain. Intraperitoneal acetate results in appetite suppression and hypothalamic neuronal activation patterning. We also show that acetate administration is associated with activation of acetyl-CoA carboxylase and changes in the expression profiles of regulatory neuropeptides that favour appetite suppression. Furthermore, we demonstrate through C-13 high-resolution magic-angle-spinning that C-13 acetate from fermentation of C-13-labelled carbohydrate in the colon increases hypothalamic C-13 acetate above baseline levels. Hypothalamic C-13 acetate regionally increases the C-13 labelling of the glutamate-glutamine and GABA neuroglial cycles, with hypothalamic C-13 lactate reaching higher levels than the 'remaining brain'. These observations suggest that acetate has a direct role in central appetite regulation.
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Keywords

AcetatesAnimalsAppetiteBrainCarbon isotopesCatalysisDietary resistant starchEatingGlucagon-like peptide-1Glutamate releaseHomeostasisHypothalamusIn-vivoLactic acidLeptinMetabolismMiceMice, inbred c57blNeuronal activationOxyntomodulinPeripheral injection

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Nature Communications due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2014, it was in position 3/57, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Multidisciplinary Sciences.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 25.27. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 13, 2025)

This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:

  • Weighted Average of Normalized Impact by the Scopus agency: 47.56 (source consulted: FECYT Mar 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2026-04-05, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 941
  • Scopus: 1484
  • Europe PMC: 654
  • Google Scholar: 1673
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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-05:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 1532.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 1532 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 441.
  • The number of mentions on the social network Facebook: 2 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 88 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on Wikipedia: 1 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions in news outlets: 37 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: https://repositorio.uam.es/handle/10486/714112
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: United Kingdom.

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Awards linked to the item

The Department is funded by grants from the Medical Research Council (MRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) all from the UK, an Integrative Mammalian Biology (IMB) Capacity Building Award, an FP7-HEALTH-2009-241592 EurOCHIP grant and funding from the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre Funding Scheme. G. F. is supported by an NIHR senior investigator award, A. V. is supported by an NHMRC overseas-based clinical research fellowship (535976) and a FP7-People-2009-256365 reintegration grant. S. C. and B. L. were supported by grants SAF2011-23622, S/BMD 23492010, IPT-2012-1331-060000 and fellowship BES-2009-027615, respectively. Authors are indebted to Mr. Javier Perez (CSIC) for professional support in drafting the illustrations.
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