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World|science|February 19, 2015 / 11:07 AM
Scientists study out why marijuana gives people munchies

AKIPRESS.COM - marijuana Researchers at Yale University got dozens of lab mice stoned in order to find out why smoking marijuana gives people the munchies, Brisbane Times says.

Previous scientific studies show that when people and animals are exposed to the active ingredients in marijuana they are driven to eat long after they should feel full.

“Everyone knows that if you smoke dope after Thanksgiving dinner you will still go back and eat more – sometimes much more,” said Tamas Horvath, a professor of neurobiology at Yale. “We were interested to find out why.”

Horvath's group studies brain circuits that control hunger and satiety. In 2011, German researcher Marco Koch joined the lab to study how marijuana interferes with the body's ability to feel satiated.

Koch hypothesized that the active ingredients in pot turn off a set of neurons in the hypothalamus that play a central role in inhibiting hunger. Those neurons are known as POMCs. But when Koch went to prove this in the brains of stoned lab mice he found that the exact opposite seemed to be true.

Koch was surprised to find that instead of the POMCs being turned off in the mice, the neurons appeared to be turned on even more. At first, Horvath wasn't sure Koch had collected the data correctly, but after further analysis he concluded that the initial findings were right.

To see what was going on, the researchers used a technique that allowed them to artificially turn off the POMCs in the brains of the mice. When they gave the mice the chemical marijuana after turning off the POMCs, the mice ate less.

Next, they artificially boosted the action of the POMCs, and the mice ate much more.

Further study revealed that cannibinoids, the active agent in marijuana, can change what kind of chemical the POMC neurons release. When a mouse is drug-free, its POMCs release MSH, a chemical that suppresses appetite. But when you give the same mouse marijuana, its POMCs start to release the opioid beta-endorphin, which promotes hunger.

The results of the study were published on Wednesday in Nature (journal).

In an article accompanying the study, researchers Sachin Patel and Roger D. Cone of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville write that the most notable part of the findings is that marijuana can change a brain circuit from being one that tells the body it's full to one that tells the body to keep eating.

Horvath believes the study posed almost as many questions as it answered. For example, what physiological purpose is served by the POMC neurons' ability to switch from repressing hunger to amplifying it? They also wonder whether the POMCs of people who are obese or who have diabetes may have altered functionality.

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