This is your brain on junk food
(according to a neuroscientist)
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Neuroscientists like me have been studying the effects of these foods on the brain, which helps us to understand how diets can affect brain function.
This is Part 6 and the final of our series on the gut-brain axis, diet and brain health.
Your brain loves junk foods
Your brains are hardwired to make you want to engage in the behaviours you find pleasurable – like having sex, socialising and eating tasty foods – all vital for the survival of a species. When you eat tasty junk foods your brain’s reward system (the mesolimbic dopamine system) activates and releases the neurotransmitter dopamine.
We know high fat and high sugar “junk” foods are bad for our health, but we often sneak them into our diets. Sometimes it just feels like our brain wants us to eat a bar of chocolate or scoff down a whole pizza.