The similarity with normal rats didn’t end there. Decerebrate rats reacted to a variety of satiety-related signals in the same way as normal rats: They ate less at a meal when Grill’s team gave them a “snack” first, and they ate less in response to satiety hormones that the gut normally produces when we eat. This demonstrated, without a shadow of a doubt, that the brain stem is single-handedly capable of monitoring what’s happening in the gut and generating the satiety response that ends a meal.
