Gut receptors communicate information about food to the brain, influencing thinking, emotion, and behavior.

“Direct signaling is the kind of signaling of the sort I've been talking about mainly up until now, which is neurons in the gut communicating with neurons in the brain stem that communicate with neurons in the hypothalamus. And, of course, those are also going to interact with neurons of the prefrontal cortex which is the area of a brain involved in decision making the, you know, I think it was the shrimp that made me sick. I'm going to, I just don't want any more of that. Or I'm never going back to that restaurant again because after I ate there about an hour later, I started feeling really not well.”