Figure 2
Hepatic pFUS reduces body weight gain, food intake, and abdominal adiposity in Western diet-fed mice. (A) Body weight as a function of time under the indicated conditions. Mice were given either Western diet (WD, blue plots) or control diet (CD, black plots) for a period of 8 weeks. On week 9, mice either received daily peripheral focused ultrasound stimulation (pFUS; closed circles, solid line) or sham stimulation (open circles, dashed line) for the remainder of the experiment. Starting at week 12, the Western diet–pFUS group (closed blue circles) had significantly attenuated body weight in comparison to Western diet–sham controls (** P < 0.01, two-way RMANOVA, week 12 WD–pFUS vs WD–sham). (B) Western diet-fed mice have reduced food intake after ultrasound stimulation. The food intake of the mice was monitored and calculated per cage per week. No significant difference was found among any of the groups in the pre-stimulation period (P > 0.05, one-way ANOVA, weeks 1–8). Post-stimulation food intake was monitored, and the food intake of the Western diet–pFUS group was found to be significantly reduced (* P < 0.05, two-way ANOVA, WD–pFUS vs WD–sham). C. Hepatic pFUS reduces abdominal adiposity. Fat weight (g) was measured on three visceral fat pads (Epidydimal, Retroperitoneal/Perirenal, and Mesenteric) extracted postmortem. The Western diet–pFUS group had significantly lower fat weight in the three fat pads compared to the Western diet–sham group (Epidydimal & Mesenteric, *** P < 0.001, two-way ANOVA; Retroperitoneal/Peririenal, **** P < 0.0001, two-way ANOVA).
