Zombies! Brains! Science!

I love a good zombie movie. Lucky for me it's been a pretty rich sub-genre (zombies have certainly been more successful that werewolves.) I've always had one teensy little problem with the whole "zombie apocalypse" scenario, though. If you're under assault by an army that is slowly decaying, isn't your best course of action simply to ...wait?

Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Steven C. Schlozman has offered a theory of sorts on "necro-diagnostics," which was part of  the "Science on Screen" lecture series at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Mass.

"In the movies, zombies are always hungry, no matter how many supporting actors they consume. The most likely explanation is that zombies don't have a properly functioning ventromedial hypothalamus: the region of the brain that lets you know whether you've eaten enough. The result is hyperphagia. Zombies will eat and eat and eat, but never feel satiated."

Read A Harvard Psychiatrist Explains Zombie Neurobiology by Mark Strauss