Researchers have discovered a new link between the gut and the brain | Swallowing nutritious food causes the release of the feel-good chemical serotonin in larvae. The findings open the door to developing new treatments for eating disorders.

From the article: In recent years, scientists have learned a lot about the important connection between the gut and the brain. Eating is particularly interesting as it involves the nervous system interacting with environmental signals (like how food smells) and physiological and metabolic signals.

Researchers from the University of Bonn, Germany, and the University of Cambridge, UK, recently undertook [a study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982224011370?via%3Dihub) to understand better how the esophagus and the brain are connected during eating – more specifically, what happens between these two organs when food is swallowed.

“We wanted to gain a detailed understanding of how the digestive system communicates with the brain when consuming food,” said the study’s corresponding author, Michael Pankratz, from the Life and Medical Sciences Institute (LIMES) at the University of Bonn. “In order to do this, we had to understand which neurons are involved in the flow of information and how they are triggered.”