WHY do smoking pot and "the munchies" go together?
One reason is that a chemical in marijuana blocks brain signals telling us not to eat, by binding to CB1 receptors. Wondering if smell was also important, Giovanni Marsicano of INSERM in Bordeaux, France, engineered mice to control all of the brain's CB1 receptors.
The team found that switching off CB1 receptors in a group of cells leading to the brain's smell centre dulled the urge to eat. Activating them with marijuana not only made mice eat more, they also reacted to less-intense food smells.
If the chemical enhances smell in humans, it could be useful as an appetite stimulant for those with cancer (Nature Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1038/nn.3647).
This article appeared in print under the headline "Marijuana amplifies sense of smell"
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