NBC News
Why does eating feel so good? It’s in your head
Appetite hormone acts on pleasure receptors in brain, lab tests show
WASHINGTON - Why does eating feel so good?
The secret may lie in the head, not in the stomach,
U.S. researchers reported.
Tests on rats show that the appetite hormone ghrelin
acts on pleasure receptors in the brain.
The findings may help researchers develop better diet drugs.
“In mice and rats ghrelin triggers the same neurons as delicious food,
sexual experience, and many recreational drugs; that is, neurons that
provide the sensation of pleasure and the expectation of reward,”
the researchers write in Friday’s issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
“These neurons produce dopamine and are located in a region of the
brain known as the ventral tegmental area (VTA),” wrote the researchers,
headed by Dr. Tamas Horvath of the Yale University School of
Medicine in Connecticut.
Horvath’s team found that ghrelin, itself only discovered in the last
decade, acts on a molecular structure on brain cells called the ghrelin
receptor growth hormone secretagogue 1 receptor or GHSR for short.
Summary of paragraph 2
Test on rat of the appetite hormone ghrelin.
What does show about the tests on rat of the appetite hormone ghrelin?
Tests on rats show that the appetite hormone ghrelin acts on pleasure
receptors in the brain.
1. appetite: one's desire to eat
2. provide: to give or suppy to make preparation for to stipulate
3. recreational: of or for recreation
4. hormone: substance produced within the body of an animal and carried by the blood to an organ which it stimulates to assist growth
5. clinical: of or relating to the examination and treatment of patients and their illnesses
6. investigation: investigating or being investigated
7. ventral: of or on the abdomen
8. decade: period of ten years
posted by Angeline @ 10/19/2006 03:03:00 PM
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