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Why does eating feel so good? It’s in your head
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15344481/

WASHINGTON - Why does eating feel so good? The secret may lie in the head, not in the stomach, U.S. researchers reported.
Tests on rats show that the appetite hormone ghrelin acts on pleasure receptors in the brain.
The findings may help researchers develop better diet drugs.
“In mice and rats ghrelin triggers the same neurons as delicious food, sexual experience, and many recreational drugs; that is, neurons that provide the sensation of pleasure and the expectation of reward,” the researchers write in Friday’s issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

“These neurons produce dopamine and are located in a region of the brain known as the ventral tegmental area (VTA),” wrote the researchers, headed by Dr. Tamas Horvath of the Yale University School of Medicine in Connecticut.

Horvath’s team found that ghrelin, itself only discovered in the last decade, acts on a molecular structure on brain cells called the ghrelin receptor growth hormone secretagogue 1 receptor or GHSR for short.

vocabulary
neurons
Definition: nerve cell: a cell, usually consisting of a cell body, axon, and dendrites, that transmits nerve impulses and is the basic functional unit of the nervous system

brain
Definition: mind: somebody's intellectual ability

Medicine
Definition: drug