Science
Scientists Identify Craving Cells in Human Brain That Drive Compulsive Eating
Huberman Lab
Essentials: Compulsive Behaviors & Deep Brain Stimulation | Dr. Casey Halpern
What was said
"We set out to see if we could identify craving cells, um, in a patient with OCD, which is related. In fact, we target a very similar part of the brain. We tried to identify cells related to obsessions, and we believe we did do that."
Dr. Halpern's team has identified specific neurons in the nucleus accumbens that fire in patterns corresponding to cravings and obsessions in patients with OCD and binge eating disorder. Similar to how they can hear tremor cells that match the frequency of physical tremors, they've detected electrical signatures of psychological cravings, potentially opening new treatment pathways for addiction and eating disorders.
Verification status
Attributed speaker claim
Egleze verified who said this and where. The underlying claim has not been independently established by Egleze.
Source and context
Egleze verified who said this and where. The underlying claim has not been independently established by Egleze.
- Programme
- Huberman Lab
- Episode
- Essentials: Compulsive Behaviors & Deep Brain Stimulation | Dr. Casey Halpern
- Clip time
- 15:58
- Original source
- Watch the source segment →
From this episode
Huberman Lab