When it comes to food poisoning, the body — well, more specifically, the brain — keeps score. Almost everyone can relate to eating something that caused them, to put it delicately, to suffer severe gastrointestinal distress that then renders them incapable of ever consuming that particular food again.
Now, neuroscientists have pinpointed the exact spot (albeit in a mouse’s brain) where such traumatic memories appear to be recorded and stored, according to a study published in the journal Nature.
The work is relevant to humans because food poisoning is a near-universal experience.
"I haven't had food poisoning in a while, but now whenever I talk to people at meetings, I hear all about their food poisoning experiences," Christopher Zimmerman, an author of the paper and postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, said in a press release.
Understanding why a particular item fills us with revulsion years — even decades ...
