If that midnight snack is a hard habit to break, you may have trained your brain to expect it. Eating at odd times causes “clock” genes in mice, which were thought to respond only to light, to adjust to the new schedule. The finding could help explain eating disorders in obese people, some of whom eat at unusual times.
Masashi Yanagisawa and colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas restricted the mealtime of nocturnal mice to 4 hours during the day, when they would otherwise be sleeping. Two genes called Per1 and Per2, which are…
