Help! the Donuts have taken over my Brain..

received this amusing article link today from Virtual Medical today about how when people are hungry they will head for a Donut even when they didn’t want one to begin with.

[quote]

New research from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine reveals how hunger works in the brain and the way neurons pull your strings to lunge for the sweet fried dough. [/quote]

Now I can say for sure that at the odd moment I will look at a Donut and wonder if I want it or not. But Thankfully my taste for fried food has diminished a lot in the last few years and I can also thank Chemotherapy for it as well, it’s amazing how drugs can pickle your taste buds for the best.

[quote]

In the study, subjects were tested twice — once after gorging on up to eight Krispy Kreme donuts until they couldn’t eat anymore, and on another day after fasting for eight hours.

In both sessions, people were shown pictures of donuts and screwdrivers, while researchers examined their brains in fMRI’s.

When the subjects saw pictures of donuts after the eating binge, their brains didn’t register much interest. But after the fast, two areas of the brain leaped into action upon seeing the donuts. First, the limbic brain — an ancestral part of the brain present in all animals from snakes to frogs to humans — lit up like fireworks.

“That part of the brain is able to detect what is motivationally significant. It says, not only am I hungry, but here is food,” said senior author Marsel Mesulam, M.D., the 
Ruth and Evelyn Dunbar Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School and a neurologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. [/quote]

If you pardon the pun, this is pretty much a no-brainier, of course you’re brain will react like a set of fire works after you’ve not had something to eat for eight hours, I don’t care what it is, if I haven’t eaten for that amount of time( and I have for a few tests) I’m pretty much ready to eat a horse and the jocky. This is also the same with gorging yourself on food then seeing a picture of it. o.O

[quote]

Mesulam noted the research demonstrates how our brain decides what to pay attention to in a world full of stimuli — not just sweets. “If you are in a forest and you hear rustling, the context urges you to pay full attention since this could be a sign of danger,” he said. “If you are in your office, the context makes the identical sound less relevant. A major job of the brain is to match response to context.”

The study helped Mesulam understand his own behavior. “Now I know why I can’t resist walking into the bakery some days when I smell fresh scones,” he said.

The research was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke.

(Source: Cerebral Cortex: Marla Paul: Northwestern University: March 2008) [/quote]

It really must be fun working as a researcher, some of the studies I’ve seen sound like a load of fun to be on, Could you imagine someone saying “oh I researched the reasons why we eat donuts.” Gosh I wish I could get a job like that.

medical research