The Neurobiology of the Obesity Epidemic

I recently read an interesting review paper by Dr. Edmund T. Rolls titled "Taste, olfactory and food texture reward processing in the b...

Food Variety, Calorie Intake, and Weight Gain

Let's kick off this post with a quote from a 2001 review paper ( 1 ): Increased variety in the food supply may contribute to the develop...

Neuronal Control of Appetite, Metabolism and Weight

Last week, I attended a Keystone conference, "Neuronal Control of Appetite, Metabolism and Weight", in Banff.  Keystone conference...

Why Do We Eat? A Neurobiological Perspective. Part VIII

In the (probably) last post of this series, I'll take the pieces that I've gradually outlined in previous posts, and put them togeth...

Why Do We Eat? A Neurobiological Perspective. Part VII

Welcome back to the series, after a bit of a hiatus!  In previous posts, we covered the fact that humans eat because we're motivated to ...

Why Do We Eat? A Neurobiological Perspective. Part V

In previous posts, I explained that food intake is determined by a variety of factors that are detected by the brain, and integrated by circ...

Why Do We Eat? A Neurobiological Perspective. Part III

In the first post, I explained that all voluntary actions are driven by a central action selection system in the mesolimbic area (the reward...

Why Do We Eat? A Neurobiological Perspective. Part II

In the last post, I explained that eating behavior is determined by a variety of factors, including hunger and a number of others that I'...