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Your gut is directly connected to your brain, by a newly discovered neuron circuit:
The human gut is lined with more than 100 million nerve cells—it's practically a brain unto itself. And indeed, the gut actually talks to the brain, releasing hormones into the bloodstream that, over the course of about 10 minutes, tell us how hungry it is, or that we shouldn't have eaten an entire pizza. But a new study reveals the gut has a much more direct connection to the brain through a neural circuit that allows it to transmit signals in mere seconds. The findings could lead to new treatments for obesity, eating disorders, and even depression and autism—all of which have been linked to a malfunctioning gut.
The study reveals "a new set of pathways that use gut cells to rapidly communicate with ... the brain stem," says Daniel Drucker, a clinician-scientist who studies gut disorders at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Toronto, Canada, who was not involved with the work. Although many questions remain before the clinical implications become clear, he says, "This is a cool new piece of the puzzle."
[...] Additional clues about how gut sensory cells benefit us today lie in a separate study, published today in Cell. Researchers used lasers to stimulate the sensory neurons that innervate the gut in mice, which produced rewarding sensations the rodents worked hard to repeat. The laser stimulation also increased levels of a mood-boosting neurotransmitter called dopamine in the rodents' brains, the researchers found.
Combined, the two papers help explain why stimulating the vagus nerve with electrical current can treat severe depression in people, says Ivan de Araujo, a neuroscientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, who led the Cell study. The results may also explain why, on a basic level, eating makes us feel good. "Even though these neurons are outside the brain, they perfectly fit the definition of reward neurons" that drive motivation and increase pleasure, he says.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @03:33AM (1 child)
Generally a good idea to post AC after consuming psychoactive drugs, especially depressants like alcohol. For me, alcohol can bring out evil me if I'm not careful.
Probably should do that as well with cannabis. At least I find it makes my comments unusually insightful (according to the mods anyway--wasn't sure at first but then I kept consistently getting upmods after smoking), and high me really isn't the same person as down me. ("Down me" as in Mr. X's writing [marijuana-uses.com].) I think that down me is just a shadow of the real me, shackled by bad, intrusive memories, which can explode into evil me with alcohol. High me is free of those disturbing, obsessive thoughts and sees things much more objectively. But I suppose that cannabis affects everybody differently.
Evil dead analogy. Down me has a hand I had to chop off after it became infested with evil; that me isn't whole. Evil me is a deadite. High me is made groovy.
Maybe soon I'll be able to be high me more often. I don't really ever get the munchies, though. Just rarely. The stuff seems to regulate my body weight like magic anyhow, so I don't really need to worry when I get the odd craving. Usually it's my body telling me that it needs something, and cannabis makes me more sensitive to those needs. I've learned not to ignore it. Cannabis enhances my entire nervous system, and I guess this research gives an explanation for how I can just magically know what my gut needs.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday September 24 2018, @09:33AM
> At least I find it makes my comments unusually insightful (according to the mods anyway--wasn't sure at first but then I kept consistently getting upmods after smoking)
consider the possibility that upmodders are high too.
Account abandoned.