Daily Mail, UK - Cannabis flicks a switch in the brain that turns on hunger, a study has found.
Research into how the drug affects our brains has revealed it actually suppresses the circuitry controls appetite and allows us to feel full.
The researchers bred mice that had differences in their nerve signalling and monitored their brain activity after they were exposed to the drug.
The study, published in the journal Nature, revealed that mice who had been exposed to cannabis felt hunger, or the munchies.
This was because the brain circuitry that normally made them feel full was instead being used to make them feel hungry, it was found.
The findings could now be used to help people who lose their appetites due to illness - and may even help prevent overeating, they say.
Professor Tamas Horvath, of Yale University School of Medicine, said: 'By observing how the appetite centre of the brain responds to marijuana, we were able to see what drives the hunger brought about by cannabis and how that same mechanism that normally turns off feeding becomes a driver of eating.
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