ROCHESTER — Do you ever go to an all-you-can eat place when you're super hungry? Maybe you pile food on your plate and shovel it in, but then can't finish because you get stuffed. Or sometimes the opposite might happen. You really get your money's worth because you never seem to feel full and keep going back for seconds, thirds or more.
Research has shown that your brain sends signals to let you know you're full and should put that fork down. But where in the brain that happens has been a bit of a mystery. Until now.
A study led by researchers at the University of Arizona reveals information that builds onto what's already known. Previous research shows the amygdala — the part of the brain that controls fear, pain and other strong emotions — is also involved in signaling when you're full.
But scientists didn't know where the signal went next. This new research shows that after the amygdala, the signal goes to a region of the brain called the parasubthalamic nucleus, or PSTh, which is responsible for the feeling of fullness, or satiation.
This is important, because how much you eat is not just related to feeling full. It's also tangled up with our emotions. The researchers are looking into the connections between how the brain signals fullness and our emotions.
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"We know that eating and emotions are different behaviors, but they interact closely with each other," says Dr. Haijiang Cai, an associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience. "Some people eat when stressed, while others eat less. Some people with an eating disorder or obesity have abnormal eating behavior, but they also have emotional problems. So, we hope to identify the neural mechanisms that control eating and control emotion and how they interact with each other. This knowledge can help us develop a more specific treatments."
The research is published in the Journal Molecular Metabolism.
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