A team of researchers that includes a faculty member at the University of Georgia has now identified a specific circuit in the brain that alters food impulsivity, creating the possibility scientists can someday develop therapeutics to address overeating, Science Daily reports.

Impulsivity has been linked not only to excessive food intake, binge eating, weight gain, and obesity, but several psychiatric disorders including addictions and excessive gambling.

“There’s underlying physiology in your brain that is regulating your capacity to say no to (impulsive eating),” said Emily Noble, an assistant professor in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences who served as lead author on the paper. “In experimental models, you can activate that circuitry and get a specific behavioral response.”

Using a rat model, researchers focused on a subset of brain cells that produce a type of transmitter in the hypothalamus called melanin concentrating hormone (MCH), according to the team’s published paper earlier this month in the journal Nature Communications.

While previous research has shown that elevating MCH levels in the brain can increase food intake, this study is the first to show that MCH also plays a role in impulsive behavior, Noble said.

“We found that when we activate the cells in the brain that produce MCH, animals become more impulsive in their behavior around food,” Noble said.