The Zona Incerta Made Me Eat It

(From a presentation on slideplayer.com)

Yale researchers have identified a section of the brain that may trigger binge eating:

GABA neurons in an area of the brain called the zona incerta induce mice to return repeatedly to feed... “The parallel with human binge-eating is interesting,” [Anthony] van den Pol said. “The mice prefer the animal equivalent of potato chips, candy, or cake.”

Research has primarily focused on the medial and lateral hypothalamus as centers for feeding behavior and largely ignored the nearby zona incerta. However, some [human] patients who undergo deep brain stimulation for treatment of movement disorders show increased interest in eating,