The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat

by Stephan Guyenet

The marshmallow test isn’t a pure test of delay discounting, because it also measures the ability to exert willpower to suppress the desire to act on temptations. The technical term for this is impulse control (or response inhibition), and it’s a component of the umbrella concept of impulsivity.

First, he uses genetic techniques to express the diphtheria toxin receptor, which mice naturally lack, specifically on NPY (more precisely, AgRP) neurons. Then, the mice are injected with diphtheria toxin, which kills the neurons but doesn’t harm other cell types.

that is a cool technique.

Some astrocyte researchers would bristle at this statement, because astrocytes do seem to participate in information processing in some situations.

you better fucking believe i bristled, you neuronocentric bastard.

In the scientific literature, satiation is the sensation of fullness that eventually terminates a meal, while satiety is the state after a meal that makes you less likely to eat again.

antalarmin, which blocks the CRF-1 receptor.

lol

cortisol-like compounds (glucocorticoids) inhibit STAT3 phosphorylation by the leptin receptor, a critical signaling event that mediates much of leptin’s impact on energy balance in the hypothalamus.

Plus, of course, the current state of your brain (as determined by genetics, previous experience, and random chance).

i feel like this would be a good subject to meditate on.

As soon as the food industry was required to report trans fat on nutrition labels, the amount of it in US foods plummeted.