Picture the scene: It's midnight. You're very hungry after studying for a long time. Then you see a nice pie in the fridge. Do you eat it? It seems that you shouldn't, for many reasons, including its influence on your studies.
Scientists have long known that eating late at night can make us gain weight. But now a new study has shown that late— night eating can also have a bad influence on our brains—it might hurt our ability to learn new things and store memories.
“We believe that late—night eating may affect(影响) our learning by affecting the parts of the brain that control learning and memory, "Dawn
Lon, PhD, a project scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles said," we believe the timing of when we eat is the main cause of the damaged (受损的) memory."
For the study, the researchers looked at mice with strict feeding plans for two weeks, the mice were either allowed to eat during the time when they are usually the most active, or during the time when they usually sleep.
The mice received the same amount of sleep and calories.
Then the researchers tested the brains of the mice. In one test, the researchers tried to find out whether the mice could remember that a room was connected to an electric shock(电击) after 24 hours had gone by.
The researchers noticed that when the mice were put in the room again hose mice that ate when they should have been sleeping were less likely(可能的) to get scared than those mice that ate during usual hours. It means that they didn't remember.
So think twice before the midnight snack— it might be bad for more than your weight.
