New research suggests that eating sweets may help people control their eating habits.

Researchers at Georgia State University, Georgia Regents University and Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center found that eating sweet foods causes the brain to form a memory of a meal. Neurons in the dorsal hippocampus, the part of the brain that is critical for episodic memory, are activated by consuming sweets. Episodic memory is the memory of autobiographical events experienced at a particular time and place.

"We think that episodic memory can be used to control eating behavior," Marise Parent, professor in the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State, said in a statement. "We make decisions like 'I probably won't eat now. I had a big breakfast.' We make decisions based on our memory of what and when we ate."

In the study, a meal consisting of a sweetened solution, either sucrose or saccharin, significantly increased the expression of the synaptic plasticity marker called activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein (Arc) in dorsal hippocampal neurons in rats. Synaptic plasticity is a process that is necessary for making memories.

The researchers' previous work showed that temporarily inactivating dorsal hippocampal neurons following a sucrose meal--the period during which the memory of a meal forms--accelerates the onset of the next meal and causes rats to eat more.

The findings suggest that forming memories of meals is important to a healthy diet. A London-based study shows that disrupting the encoding of the memory of a meal in humans, such as by watching television, increases the amount of food they consume during the next meal. Researchers have found that people with amnesia will eat again if presented with food, even if they've already eaten, because they have no memory of the meal.

To understand energy regulation and the causes of obesity, scientists must consider how the brain controls meal onset and frequency, Parent said.

The findings are detailed in the journal Hippocampus.