Your brain on Krispy Kremes

March 6, 2008

What makes you suddenly dart into the bakery when you spy chocolate- frosted donuts in the window, though you certainly hadn't planned on indulging? As you lick the frosting off your fingers, don't blame a lack of self-control.

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.

Krispy Kremes, in perhaps their first starring role in neurological research, helped lead to the discovery.

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.

Next, the brain's spatial attention network shifted the hungry subject's focus toward the new object of desire -- in this case the Krispy Kremes.

"If we didn't have this part of the brain, every time you passed by a bakery you would have no control over your eating," explained Mesulam, who also is director of the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at the Feinberg School. "If your nerve cells fired every time you smelled something edible, then you'd eat all the time, not just when you're hungry."

"There's a very complex system in the brain that helps to direct our attention to items in our environment that are relevant to our needs, for example, food when we are hungry but not when we are full," said Aprajita Mohanty, lead author of the paper and a post-doctoral fellow at the Feinberg School. The study was published on-line last week in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

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.

Source: Northwestern University

3.9 /5 (17 votes)  

Rank 3.9 /5 (17 votes)
Tags

Relevant PhysicsForums posts
  • Is Everyday Technology Killing Us?
    createdFeb 08, 2012
  • Exercise and weight loss
    createdFeb 08, 2012
  • Why do we have head aches? Our brains can't feel anything.
    createdFeb 07, 2012
  • "The end of diseases" by David Agus, interview from Daily Show with Jon Stewart
    createdFeb 04, 2012
  • Oncolytic adenovirus
    createdFeb 04, 2012
  • Nutrition label stuffs and diets
    createdFeb 02, 2012
  • More from Physics Forums - Medical Sciences

More news stories

Overeating may double risk of memory loss

New research suggests that consuming between 2,100 and 6,000 calories per day may double the risk of memory loss, or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), among people age 70 and older. The study was released today and will be ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created 1 hour ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Injured boomers beware: Know when to see doctor

(AP) -- It happened to nurse Jane Byron years after an in-line skating fall, business owner Haralee Weintraub while doing "men's" push-ups, and avid cyclist Gene Wilberg while lifting a heavy box.

Medicine & Health / Health

created 6 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Starve a virus, feed a cure? Findings show how some cells protect themselves against HIV

A protein that protects some of our immune cells from the most common and virulent form of HIV works by starving the virus of the molecular building blocks that it needs to replicate, according to research published online ...

Medicine & Health / Research

created 4 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

FDA-approved drug rapidly clears amyloid from the brain, reverses Alzheimer's symptoms in mice

Neuroscientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have made a dramatic breakthrough in their efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. The researchers' findings, published in the journal Science, show t ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (58) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

Green tea found to reduce disability in the elderly

(Medical Xpress) -- A lot of research has been done over the past several years looking into the health benefits of green tea. As a result, scientists have found that regular consumption of the beverage leads ...

Medicine & Health / Health

created Feb 07, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (15) | comments 10 | with audio podcast report


Google might launch Drive for cloud storage soon

(PhysOrg.com) -- Google's next big move, according to the Wall Street Journal, is a cloud storage service called Drive. Hardly first to the plate, Google is simply catching up to introducing its cloud reposi ...

Scientists discover molecular secrets of 2,000-year-old Chinese herbal remedy

For roughly two thousand years, Chinese herbalists have treated Malaria using a root extract, commonly known as Chang Shan, from a type of hydrangea that grows in Tibet and Nepal. More recent studies suggest that halofuginone, ...

New method to examine batteries -- MRI from the inside

There is an ever-increasing need for advanced batteries for portable electronics, such as phones, cameras, and music players, but also to power electric vehicles and to facilitate the distribution and storage of energy derived ...

Lab study raises questions over nano-particle impact

Tests involving chickens have raised questions about the impact on health from engineered nano-particles, the ultra-fine grains commonly used in drugs and processed foods, scientists said on Sunday.

A mitosis mystery solved: How chromosomes align perfectly in a dividing cell

Although the process of mitotic cell division has been studied intensely for more than 50 years, Whitehead Institute researchers have only now solved the mystery of how cells correctly align their chromosomes during symmetric ...

Researchers find extensive RNA editing in human transcriptome

In a new study published online in Nature Biotechnology, researchers from BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, reported the evidence of extensive RNA editing in a human cell line by analysis of RNA-seq data, demons ...