Energy Dysregulation: Behavioral and Biological Signals

描述(由申请人提供)：卫生局局长表示，环境和生活方式的改变可能是治疗肥胖症的最有希望的方式。关于饮食和环境因素作用的生理和行为控制机制的知识空白阻碍了有效治疗的进展。因此，该计划项目的目标是整合多学科视角，使用人类和啮齿动物模型来调查肥胖的环境基础。似乎很明显，在美味、能量丰富的食物持续供应的条件下，能量平衡取决于当食物或与食物相关的刺激存在时抑制进食的能力。研究食物的线索特性提供的信息如何抑制进食行为是这个项目的中心目标，每个项目检查三个水平的抑制控制。首先，食物摄取的抑制可能取决于味觉刺激的能力，如味道和味道，以信号的营养后果吃。我们将调查动物使用这些感官特性来预测食物的营养影响的想法，以及削弱这种预期反应会扰乱能量调节。其次，我们将研究口腔后胃肠传感器检测到的信号如何传输到大脑来抑制进食，以及这些肠道信号的功能如何受到饮食因素的影响。最后，由味觉和胃肠信号提供的信息必须由大脑整合和处理，以产生适应性的行为结果。我们将研究进食和食欲行为的抑制依赖于海马体的可能性，海马体是一个似乎在行为抑制中发挥重要作用的大脑结构，以及某些饮食因素可能通过损害海马体功能来促进能量失调。心理、行为、生物和食品科学方面的专业知识将与发现特定的行为或饮食干预措施相结合，这些干预措施可以加强或恢复对进食的适应性抑制控制，从而改善、阻止或扭转当前的肥胖趋势。行政核心将提供统计咨询、数据管理和其他组织支助，并将监测和评价所有方案活动。分析核心将监督、协调和标准化所有计划项目人员使用的技术和行为分析。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Surgeon General has stated that environmental and lifestyle changes may hold the most promise for the treatment of obesity. Gaps in knowledge about the physiological and behavioral control mechanisms on which dietary and environmental factors operate impede progress toward effective therapies. Thus, the goal of this Program Project is to integrate multi-disciplinary perspectives to investigate, using both human and rodent models, the environmental basis of obesity. It seems clear that under conditions where highly palatable, energy-rich, food is available continuously, energy balance depends on the ability to inhibit eating when food or stimuli associated with food are present. Examining how information provided by the cue properties of food can inhibit ingestive behavior is the central aim of this program project, with individual projects examining three levels of inhibitory control. First, inhibition of food intake may depend on the ability of orosensory stimuli, such as taste and flavor, to signal the nutritive consequences of eating. We will investigate the idea that animals use these sensory properties to anticipate the nutritive impact of foods, and that impairing this anticipatory response disturbs energy regulation. Second, we will study how signals that are detected by post-oral, gastrointestinal sensors are transmitted to the brain to suppress eating, and how the functions of these gut cues is influenced by dietary factors. Finally, the information provided by orosensory and gastrointestinal signals must be integrated and processed by the brain to produce adaptive behavioral outcomes. We will investigate the possibilities that inhibition of eating and appetitive behavior relies on the hippocampus, a brain structure that appears to play an important role in behavioral inhibition, and that certain dietary factors may promote energy dysregulation by impairing hippocampal function. Expertise in psychological, behavioral, biological, and food sciences will be integrated with the aim of discovering specific behavioral or dietary interventions that could strengthen or reinstate adaptive inhibitory control over eating and thus, ameliorate, stop, or reverse current trends toward obesity. An Administrative Core will provide statistical consulting, data management and other organizational support and will monitor and evaluate all program activities. The Analytical Core will oversee, coordinate, and standardize technological and behavior assays that are used by all Program Project personnel.