Once upon a time, at San Juan Puerto Rico, there was a special mouse. This mouse lived

in a house with all his family members and had an almost perfect life because he had a job,

home, food and friends. This mouse gained enough to eat and sustain his necessities. He had a

good relationship with his family members and also with his girlfriend. He worked every day of

the week and at the weekends he had fun. By fun I mean doing extracurricular activities like

playing volleyball or going to the theaters. Not only he did all these but also he went to the

church on Sundays. He was very social with people and he made people feel good. People

laughed at his jokes and his stories. In addition, he was being considered for a higher position at

his job. At the company in which he worked, this position was one of a lot of privileges. He had

a normal life in all these aspects but something was not right with the form in which he ate. This

mouse was a little overweight because he ate alcapurrias, vacalaitos and empanadillas. One night

he was observing his friends and all of them were in a good shape because they controlled what

they eat. They eat fruits and vegetables. Also, all of his friends did exercise for fun or as a hobby.

They had big muscles and marked abdominals. Suddenly, the mouse was taken as a lab rat by a

scientist. The scientist took out the rat’s Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) and did

different experiments with Filip. At first Filip was very scared but then he thought this was going

to change his life in a positive way. Some of his thoughts were that the physical status of his

body and his health were going to get better. The BDNF if what the scientist took out of the brain

and this is a protein that controls the eating desire of an organism. As it has been studied, mice

that lack BDNF in the brain tends to eat excessively and therefore have different health

complications. On the opposite, Filip was happy because he thought that in this experiment the

scientist was going to convert him into a slimmer mouse. As a consecuence of this, Filip was

telling his friends “I am going to be skinny and you are not”. By the contrary, after a week it

turned to be something else. Filip weighed 20 pounds and that is abnormal for a mouse. All his

friends and family members weighed around 5 pounds and Filip was fourth times this. Filip ate

more quantity and worse quality of foods. He did not have the ability to control what to eat. His

choices were everything in front of him like candies, meat, cookies, or even fruits. He could not

resist and did not know what was happening. Filip could not move or even wave his hand. It was

almost impossible due to his obesity. As part of the investigation Filip was used by the scientist

to study the role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the regulation of food intake.

The purpose is to study obesity and how it affects humans by causing some diseases. Some of

these diseases are diabetes and hyperlipidemia. Filip’s study helped in the contribution of new

drugs for diabetes and hyperlipidemia patients. Now these patients don’t need to walk to every

place using the small machine for insulin at their abdomen. The can use a different machine that

is more practical.