Sugar Substitutes Busted By Smart Brain Cognition

The brain response to real sugar is different than with sugar substitutes.In the same week that researchers told Americans to slash our sugar consumption, new research suggests that even when artificial sweeters fool our taste buds, they don’t dupe our brains.

In recent brain scanning tests companying brain responses to sugar drinks, and artifically-sweetened ones, both sugar and the noncaloric sweeteners activated a brain region called the amygdala, which signals sensory pleasure. But only the sugared drink turned on a cherry-sized nugget of brain tissue in a region called the caudate.

Results emphasize the fact that our brain has a mind of its own, in how it activitates response to artificially-sweetened food and drinks. Knowing that it hasn’t actually received a sugar ‘fix’, the caudate section of our brain may still send us looking for real sugar, stimulating appetite, rather than depressing it. via LATimes