DEVELOPING A MODEL OF STRESS-INDUCED OBESITY

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The notion that the ingestion of calorically dense comfort foods to relieve socio-environmental stressors contributes to the obesity epidemic is gaining acceptance. This project is designed to show how socio-environmental factors, notably the psychosocial stress associated with social subordination, affects appetite in female rhesus monkeys. Monkeys are housed socially and those of subordinate social status show behavioral and endocrine indices of stress. Females had a computer chip implanted subcutaneously in the wrist that, when reaching into an automated feeding dispenser would identify the monkey and deliver one pellet of food. In this way, food intake was monitored 24 hours per day, seven days a week. In the previous year, we showed subordinate females consumed significantly more of a calorically dense diet than did dominant females and this was associated with an increased gain in weight. This intake of the high caloric diet was unaffected by opioid antagonism or estradiol, both known to reduce appetite I other models. In the current year, we tested the hypothesis that a corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) receptor antagonist, known to reduce food intake, would normalize diet consumption in subordinates. These data are currently being analyzed. These studies are providing insights into how socio-environmental variable may contribute to excess food consumption and obesity in humans.