Tag: "cravings" at biology news

Bats get the munchies too!

Many of us will be familiar with cravings for sweet food, after having overindulged in alcohol the night before. It appears that Egyptian fruit bats also crave particular types of sugar to reduce the effects of ethanol toxicity. Francisco Sanchez from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (...

New research identifies gene important for nicotine's effects on the brain

...people who quit smoking can continue to experience cravings many years later or even start smoking again." Picciotto hopes her findings lead to the development of new targets for smoking cessation therapies. However, it will not be easy to target the signaling molecules manipulated in this study in human s...

Hopkins researchers discover how brain protein might control memory

...the person who quits smoking can wean himself from cravings at home, at work or outside. But if you put him in a bar with a drink in his hand, his brain remembers that former association and suddenly the craving returns. These types of long-term associations are memories wired in your brain." Years ago, W...

Hormone linked to brain's cravings for food and other energy sources

... and operates through a brain region that controls cravings for food and other energy sources, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the October 19 online issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Ghrelin was previously associated with growth hormone release, appetite, learning, and memory a...

Successful lung cancer surgery not enough to break nicotine dependence in many smokers

...University. "Their choices are driven by insidious cravings for nicotine." The investigators found that those smokers who were the last to give up their cigarettes - some on the same day as their operation - and who saw smoking as a pleasurable activity they would have difficulty giving up, were also the f...

Blood test predicts success of quitting smoking using the nicotine patch

...patch are likely to experience the least amount of cravings and have the highest probability of success in qui...participants also provided information on level of cravings for cigarettes one week after their quit date. "Using the rate of nicotine metabolism, we were abl...

Grabbing addiction by the tail

...ecular trickery that is helping to reduce the drug cravings of addicted rats. One of the problems in addiction is that neurons in some parts of the brain lose glutamate receptors from the cell surface, and those receptors are important for communication between neurons. The researchers have sidestepped this p...

Nicotine triggers the same brain reward circuitry as opiates

...s of opioid receptor blockers to relieve cigarette cravings "so far have produced mixed results, ranging from ineffectiveness at smoking cessation to mild reduction in the desire to smoke." The researchers wrote that their findings "suggest that the timing and context of opioid receptor antagonist administra...

Brain Scan Study of Smokers Reveals Signature of Craving

... or a pack of cigarettes. Smokers who noted fewer cravings showed stable brain responses to the same drug cue...ealed that those smokers who reported more intense cravings after deprivation also exhibited heightened sensitivity to smoking-related images compared to those ...

Thai spice helps cut blood sugar swings

...od sugar level. When that happens, he writes, "new cravings are created, requiring more quick carbohydrate fixes." Next steps Wielinga again warned that any comparison between rats and humans regarding HCA have to be treated very carefully. However, he said now that it is known where HCA has an effect in ra...

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