Don’t go grocery shopping when you are hungry. You’ll buy stuff you don’t need. Picture this even if you haven’t seen the movie: Jim Carrey, who plays Lloyd Christmas in the movie Dumb and Dumber, goes into a store with little money to buy necessities for a trip he’s about to take with Harry Dunne, played by Jeff Daniels. Harry tells Lloyd to be prudent with their limited funds, but Lloyd returns from the store wearing a large foam hat and carrying other items that would be, in almost anyone’s mind, foolish purchases.
Picture this even if you haven’t been to the Sahlgrenska Academy of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden: Karolina Skibicka, who plays a neuroscientist in real life, and others who also play neuroscientists in real life, published a paper in Neuropsychopharmacology on how and why hunger affects impulsivity. I can guess your thought here. If you know not to go food shopping when you are hungry, wouldn’t Karolina, who is probably a very bright person if one judges by job—it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this one about brain surgeons—also know not to go shopping for food while hungry?
Here’s what the research uncovered: You’ve got a hormone lurking in your bowels. It’s called ghrelin, and it acts on the central nervous system when you are hungry. So, Skibicka and other researchers starved some rats and gave them tests. Guess what? They acted impulsively. Contain your surprise here.
As I write this, I am hungry. It’s before breakfast, and my stomach is empty. There’s no food near me save a cup of coffee. Now, thanks to Skibicka and others at the Sahlgrenska Academy of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, I know that ghrelin is acting on my central nervous system and causing me to choose a blog topic out of impulsivity. Thus, today, you are reading about something that my ghrelin chose on a whim.
Yes, we have uncovered many chemicals that influence behavior. Yes, we know that chemical imbalances in the brain can influence mood and thought. Now we also know that an empty stomach causes us to act impulsively. We have a scientific explanation. And now you know how smart your grandmother and mother were when they told you to eat. If those neuroscientists at the Sahlgrenska Academy of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden had been in your house when you were growing up, they might have devoted themselves to discovering something a little less obvious. Bon appétit.
Picture this even if you haven’t been to the Sahlgrenska Academy of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden: Karolina Skibicka, who plays a neuroscientist in real life, and others who also play neuroscientists in real life, published a paper in Neuropsychopharmacology on how and why hunger affects impulsivity. I can guess your thought here. If you know not to go food shopping when you are hungry, wouldn’t Karolina, who is probably a very bright person if one judges by job—it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this one about brain surgeons—also know not to go shopping for food while hungry?
Here’s what the research uncovered: You’ve got a hormone lurking in your bowels. It’s called ghrelin, and it acts on the central nervous system when you are hungry. So, Skibicka and other researchers starved some rats and gave them tests. Guess what? They acted impulsively. Contain your surprise here.
As I write this, I am hungry. It’s before breakfast, and my stomach is empty. There’s no food near me save a cup of coffee. Now, thanks to Skibicka and others at the Sahlgrenska Academy of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, I know that ghrelin is acting on my central nervous system and causing me to choose a blog topic out of impulsivity. Thus, today, you are reading about something that my ghrelin chose on a whim.
Yes, we have uncovered many chemicals that influence behavior. Yes, we know that chemical imbalances in the brain can influence mood and thought. Now we also know that an empty stomach causes us to act impulsively. We have a scientific explanation. And now you know how smart your grandmother and mother were when they told you to eat. If those neuroscientists at the Sahlgrenska Academy of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden had been in your house when you were growing up, they might have devoted themselves to discovering something a little less obvious. Bon appétit.
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