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- Meeting ID: 91512 289258
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While urges to eat are regulated by hunger, satiety, and energy demand, they are also strongly influenced by sights, sounds, and smells that are associated with food (food cues). These food cues can influence feeding behavior, triggering cravings that can promote overeating. Dr. Ferrario’s lab examines the neurobiological mechanisms of cue-triggered food craving, and how these processes are influenced by susceptibility to diet-induced obesity and by consumption of sugary, fatty, “junk-food” diets. In her talk, she will discuss how enhanced responsivity to food cues contributes to obesity, and how eating “junk-foods” enhances excitatory transmission within the NAc to influence food “craving”. She will also highlight sex differences in these effects, and the role that susceptibility to obesity plays in diet-induced plasticity.