A woman who couldn't feel hungry after a stroke (中风) may help us improve our understanding of one area of the brain.
The 28-year-old Canadian was in hospital after feeling weak on one side of her body and having trouble speaking. The examination result showed that she had a stroke in a brain area called the insula (脑岛).
Soon after the stroke, the woman noticed that she never felt hungry anymore, even when she hadn't eaten for a long time. She often forgot to eat and lost more than 10 kilograms.
The woman could still taste and smell the food, but often ate about half as much as usual because she no longer enjoyed eating. Even chocolate, her favorite food, gave her no joy. The woman's hunger finally came back about 12 months after the stroke.
The insula is one of the least understood parts of the brain. It works with other parts of the brain to make a feeling of hunger that encourages eating. "This woman's brain would still have been receiving signals(信号) that she was missing calories, but because of the damage (损伤) to her insula, she wouldn't have noticed them," says Yoav Livneh at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
This finding could help to find new ways to treat obesity (肥胖). For example, it may be possible to use some ways to send signals to the insula to prevent overeating, Livneh says. He agrees that this is a possibility, but says it will be more important not to damage the insula's other functions (功能).