Memory neurons in rats may explain why forgetting meals leads to overeating

Researchers identify “meal memory” neurons at laboratory rats that can explain why forgetting lunch leads to too much food.

Scientists have discovered a specific group of brain cells that create memories of meals, not only coding for what food was eaten, but when it was eaten. The findings, published today in Nature communicationcould explain why people with memory problems often eat too much and why forgetting a recent meal can cause excessive hunger and lead to disorderly food.

During dinner, neurons become active in the brain of the ventral hippocampus and form what the team of researchers call “meal grams” – specialized memory tracks that store information about the experience of food consumption. Although scientists have long studied and grams for their role in storing memories and other experiences in the brain, the new study of and grams dedicated to meal experiences.

A gram is the physical trail that a memory leaves in the brain. Meal engrams function as advanced organic databases that store several types of information, such as where you were eating, as well as the time you ate. “

Scott Kanoski, professor of Biological Sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Correspondence Author of the study

Distracted food implications

The discovery is immediately relevant to understanding human eating disorders. Patients with memory disorders, such as patients with dementia or brain injury, who influence memory formation, can often use multiple meals in succession because they cannot remember that they eat.

In addition, derived food – such as thoughtless snacking while watching television or scrolling on a telephone – can influence meal memories and contribute to over -consumption.

Based on the findings of the experiment, meal and grams are formed during short breaks between bites when the brains of laboratory rats naturally examine the food environment. With these moments of consciousness, specialized hippocampal neurons can integrate several information flows.

Kanoski said it can be assumed that the brain of a person would undergo a similar phenomenon. If someone’s attention is focused elsewhere – on telephone or television screens – these critical coding moments are affected. “The brain is unable to properly catalog the meal experience,” said Lea Decarie-Spain, postdoctoral scholar at USC Dornsife and the first author of the study, “which leads to weak or incomplete meal grams.”

Mechanism of ‘Meal memories’

The research team used advanced neuroscientific techniques to observe the brain activity of laboratory rats while they ate, so that the first real -time view of how meal memories form.

The meal memory neurons are different from brain cells involved in other types of memory formation. When researchers destroyed these neurons selectively, labels showed a reduced memory for food locations, but normally retain spatial memory for non-food-related tasks, which indicates a specialized system dedicated to meal-related information processing. The study showed that meal memory neurons communicate with the lateral hypothalamus, a brain area that has long been known to control hunger and eating behavior. When this Hippocampus-Hypothalamus connection was blocked, the labrats were able to overtats and they could not remember where meals were consumed.

Implications for eating management

Kanoski said that the findings could ultimately inform new clinical approaches for the treatment of obesity and weight management. Current weight control strategies are often aimed at limiting food intake or increasing exercise, but the new research suggests that improving the formation of the meal memory can be equally important.

“We are finally starting to understand that remembering what and when you ate is just as crucial for healthy eating as the food choices themselves,” said Kanoski.