WHY YOU CAN’T STAND THAT FOOD AFTER GETTING SICK

Mario Nawfal

@MarioNawfal
WHY YOU CAN’T STAND THAT FOOD AFTER GETTING SICK

Ever gotten food poisoning and suddenly couldn’t even look at that food again without gagging? Turns out your brain has receipts — and it holds a grudge.

Researchers at Princeton gave mice grape Kool-Aid, waited 30 minutes, then hit them with a fake stomach bug.

Just one bad grape-flavored decision, and boom — the mice ditched Kool-Aid like it ghosted them in a group chat.

2 days later? Still not touching it.

That’s called one-shot learning, and your brain is really good at it when vomit is involved.

The memory culprit?

A drama queen of a brain region called the central amygdala — the same one that handles fear, emotions, and apparently petty food trauma.

It gets triggered when you drink, when you hurl, and again days later just to make sure you never forget.

Signals from your gut travel through CGRP-tagged neurons in your hindbrain straight to that emotional HQ, like your intestines filing a Yelp review to your brain:

“1 star, never again.”

So yeah, your brain is basically a very bitter elephant with a taste memory. Grape Kool-Aid never stood a chance.

Source: Popular Science