Your brain on food: Neural wiring differs along with eating behaviors

The brains of people with anorexia and obesity are wired differently, according to new research. Neuroscientists for the first time have found that how our brains respond to food differs across a spectrum of eating behaviors -- from extreme overeating to food deprivation. This study is one of several new approaches to help better understand and ultimately treat eating disorders and obesity. "One of the most intriguing aspects of these studies of the brain on food," says Laura Martin of the University of Kansas Medical Center, one of several researchers whose work being presented today at a meeting of cognitive neuroscientists in Chicago, is that they show "consistent activations of reward areas of the brain that are also implicated in studies of addiction." However, how those reward areas respond to food differs between people depending on their eating behaviors, according to a new brain imaging study.