It is passe, if not cliche-ish, to say that MRI images of the brain show similar activity for some people shown food images compared with cocaine addicts shown coke images.

But a study at Dartmouth College — published April 18 in The Journal of Neuroscience — goes a step further, using images from the brain’s rewards center to predict who is likely to gain weight six months hence.

Not only that, but researchers used the same technique to predict sexual desire.

The study was reported in a release at medicalnewstoday.com. The paper stresses "material specificity," noting that the participants who responded to food images gained weight but did not engage in more sexual behavior, and vice versa. The authors go on to say that none of the non-food images predicted weight gain.

This is big.