TSPO: an emerging role in appetite for a therapeutically promising biomarker.

Joshua Wang, Kate Beecher

Open access · goldAbstract readReview

In one paragraph

Review in Open biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

1citing papers in PubMed

0.8field-weighted citation impact, top 28% of its field

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.

Neurosteroids Progesterone and Dehydroepiandrosterone: Molecular Mechanisms of Action in Neuroprotection and Neuroinflammation.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025
Review

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Joshua WangAddiction Neuroscience and Obesity Laboratory, School of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Health, Translational Research Institute, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Kate BeecherAddiction Neuroscience and Obesity Laboratory, School of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Health, Translational Research Institute, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Translational Research Institute · AU

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

There is accumulating evidence that an obesogenic Western diet causes neuroinflammatory damage to the brain, which then promotes further appetitive behaviour. Neuroinflammation has been extensively studied by analysing the translocator protein of 18 kDa (TSPO), a protein that is upregulated in the inflamed brain following a damaging stimulus. As a result, there is a rich supply of TSPO-specific agonists, antagonists and positron emission tomography ligands. One TSPO ligand, etifoxine, is also currently used clinically for the treatment of anxiety with a minimal side-effect profile. Despite the neuroinflammatory pathogenesis of diet-induced obesity, and the translational potential of targeting TSPO, there is sparse literature characterizing the effect of TSPO on appetite. Therefore, in this review, the influence of TSPO on appetite is discussed. Three putative mechanisms for TSPO's appetite-modulatory effect are then characterized: the TSPO-allopregnanolone-GABA

Indexed as

Appetite RegulationAnimalsHumansObesityReceptors, GABABzrp protein, mouseReceptors, GABATSPO protein, humanappetiteneurosteroidsobesityRIM-BP1tanycytesTSPO

Identifiers

PMID34343461

DOI10.1098/rsob.210173

PMCPMC8331234

OpenAlexW3189849004

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata

LicenceCC BY

Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.