Harnessing sensory food circuits to influence feeding behavior

利用感官食物回路影响进食行为

• 批准号: 10245940
• 负责人: Amber L Alhadeff
• 金额: $ 145.98万
• 依托单位: MONELL CHEMICAL SENSES CENTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-15 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10245940
• 关键词: Award; Biology; Body Weight; Body Weight decreased; Brain; Calcium; Chemicals; Cues; Eating; Eating Behavior; Environment; Exposure to; Feeding behaviors; Food; Food Preferences; Future; Hyperphagia; Individual; Individual Differences; Maps; Modernization; Monitor; Mus; Neurobiology; Neurons; Neurosciences; Nutrient; Obesity; Palate; Pathway interactions; Pattern; Pennsylvania; Pharmacology; Physiology; Process; Productivity; Property; Research; Satiation; Sensory; Signal Transduction; Smell Perception; Taste Perception; United States; United States National Institutes of Health; Universities; Weight Gain; awake; career; collaborative environment; experience; feeding; food environment; innovation; neural circuit; neuromechanism; novel strategies; relating to nervous system; research and development; response; sensory input; sensory integration; sensory stimulus; therapeutic target

PROJECT SUMMARY Our modern food environment, with its widespread availability of energy-dense, palatable foods and associated cues, is thought to interact with our physiology to promote food intake. This has contributed to the drastic increase in obesity in the United States over the past several decades. However, most pharmacological weight loss strategies target satiation pathways, not sensory pathways, and therefore may be less effective at eliminating effects of environmental/sensory cues on food intake. Here we propose to take a novel approach to understanding the drive to eat by examining the neural integration of sensory and nutritive food signals. First, we will create sensory “engrams” – functional maps of neurons activated by discrete sensory stimuli – and determine how activating or inhibiting these circuits can influence food preference. This process will reveal the power of leveraging “neural tastes,” “neural smells,” and “neural nutrients” – sensory experiences without external sensory input – to shift feeding behavior. Next, we will monitor neural activity in awake, freely moving mice to determine how neural activity in response to the sensory properties of food relates to individual differences in feeding behavior and future weight gain. Finally, we will monitor calcium dynamics in individual neurons to reveal the activity patterns that integrate sensory and nutritive information in the brain across different body weights. Successful implementation of this proposal has the potential to enable an entirely new line of research and development for weight loss therapeutics that targets neural circuits that integrate sensory and nutritive properties of food. My track record of scientific innovation and productivity, combined with the collaborative environment at the Monell Chemical Senses Center and Department of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, makes me uniquely suited to bridge the fields of chemosensory biology, feeding neurobiology, and obesity to execute a project of this ambition. Overall, this NIH Director’s New Innovator Award would launch my early career and provide the intellectual space to pursue innovative research that can redefine the neural mechanisms that underlie overeating and obesity.

项目概要 我们的现代食品环境广泛提供能量丰富、美味的食品和相关食品 暗示，被认为与我们的生理机能相互作用，促进食物摄入量的急剧增加。 然而，在过去的几十年里，美国的肥胖症最合乎逻辑的是药物减肥。 策略的目标是饱腹感途径，而不是感觉途径，因此在消除饥饿感方面可能效果较差 环境/感官线索对食物摄入的影响在这里我们建议采取一种新颖的方法。 通过检查感官和营养食物信号的神经整合来了解进食的动力。 我们将创建感觉“印迹”——由离散感觉刺激激活的神经元的功能图——以及 确定激活或抑制这些回路如何影响食物偏好。 利用“神经味道”、“神经气味”和“神经营养”的力量——无需感官体验 外部感觉输入——改变进食行为 接下来，我们将监测清醒、自由活动时的神经活动。 小鼠以确定对食物感官特性做出反应的神经活动如何与个体相关 最后，我们将监测个体的钙动态。 神经元揭示整合大脑中不同感觉和营养信息的活动模式 该提案的成功实施有可能催生出全新的产品线。 针对整合感觉和神经回路的减肥疗法的研究和开发 我的科学创新和生产力记录，以及食物的营养特性。 莫内尔化学感官中心和神经科学系的协作环境 宾夕法尼亚大学使我非常适合在化学感应生物学、喂养等领域之间架起桥梁 总体而言，该项目获得了 NIH 主任新创新奖。 将开启我的早期职业生涯，并提供智力空间来追求可以重新定义的创新研究 暴饮暴食和肥胖背后的神经机制。