Modeling the Neurological Basis and Characterizing the Neurological Phenotype of Obesity Using Human Neural Stem Cells

This study aims to characterize the neurological basis of obesity and response to surgical and medical treatment by inducing adult pluripotent stem cells into neuronal cells from subjects that have demonstrated extreme response to bariatric surgery or pharmacological treatment for obesity.

The investigators will consent subjects who have achieved extreme response to either bariatric surgery or pharmacologic treatment for obesity and harvest fibroblasts from skin biopsies, which will be reprogrammed to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). These iPSC's will then be differentiated into neural progenitor cells, neurons, astrocytes, and microglia to identify genetic and epigenetic pathways altered in disease-specific neural progenitor cells of the brain.