Your Brain on Insulin: From Heresy to Dogma

As recently as 1988, the idea that insulin might regulate cognitive and neural functions was, if not quite heretical, still seen as unlikely. As our ability to measure metabolic and molecular changes in the brain has improved, the hippocampus in particular has been revealed as a primary target for insulin. Today insulin is established as a key regulator of hippocampal fuel supply and a critical component of memory formation and storage within the hippocampus. Brain insulin signaling is a target for therapeutic intervention in patients with neuropsychological conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.