Overview

• Researchers at USC used advanced neuroscience techniques to track ventral hippocampus activity and found specialized neuron groups form 'meal engrams' during brief pauses between bites.
• Disrupting these meal engram neurons in rats impaired their memory of food locations without affecting other spatial memories.
• Blocking the hippocampus-hypothalamus pathway led rats to overeat and forget where they had consumed meals.
• Distracted eating, such as snacking while watching television, weakened meal memory formation and may drive overeating.
• The findings suggest that strengthening meal recall could become a target for obesity treatments alongside diet and exercise.