This is a scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Karen Hopkins. This will just take a minute.

It's one of marijuana's most well-known side effects. The ravenous desire for food commonly called the

munchies. But why does weed make chocolate, chips, and as the Harold and

Kumar documentaries have shown White Castle sliders so irresistible?

Finally, science may have an answer. White Castle sliders, so irresistible.

Finally, science may have an answer.

The urge to eat is controlled by complex circuits of neurons in the brain.

Some of these nerve cells make us feel hungry, driving us to eat.

Others cause us to feel sated, so we put down the

dreidos bag and stop filling our faces. To figure out how marijuana might hijack the system,

researchers exposed mice to a chemical that mimics the effect of the active ingredient

in cannabis, THC, by binding to the brain's THC receptors.

These doped-up rodents tend to keep gnoshing, even if they've already eaten their fill.

But what's going on in their little mouse brains?

Well, paradoxically, the researchers found that the canabenoid receptor turns on the neurons that normally make animals feel full.

But what happens next is different from usual.

When the hay I'm full neurons get triggered by the THC receptors,

they wind up sending a hay I'm still hungry signal that sends us scrambling for the

cupcakes. This is your brain on drugs. In addition to explaining 4 a.m. diner trips

the research in the journal Nature may be useful for addressing the medical condition of appetite loss

as commonly happens with cancer and depression for example and knowing these details of

neuronal activity could lead to better treatments for those patients who could really benefit from the case of the

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