Critical Thinking Assignment 1) University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center (2011, April 12).

In life, many people participate in various daily events and activities that help them enjoy being who they are. People may enjoy getting together with friends, going to the mall, going to an amusement park or simply finding relaxation in nature. However, a big part of everyone’s life is of course eating and many people find pleasure in doing so. Eating is a very enjoyable and delectable must for everyone but should be done so, like everything in life, in a smart and intelligent way. Being smart and perceptive when eating is a large part of nutrition.

Objective: To study the differences in CNS activation due to food cues and consumption between

Many concepts relevant to this topic are discussed in the article titled, “Decline in Taste and Odor Discrimination Abilities with Age, and Relationship between Gustation and

Overeating provides an interesting parallel to addictive behaviour. Much like habitual drug users, obese individuals commonly report experiencing craving and preoccupation with food (Herman and Polivy, 2008; Jastreboff, Sinha, Lacadie, Small, Sherwin & Potenza, 2013). The influence that food relevant cues (e.g. sight, smell, taste) have on food intake has also been well documented (for review see Herman & Polivy, 2008). . It is plausible that dopaminergic conditioning occurs in individuals who habitually overeat. Attempts to establish if attentional bias for food cues is a useful predictor of obesity risk have had mixed success. However there is a growing body of research that demonstrated that obese individuals allocate greater attentional

For this reason, lets look at the role of the primary drive of hunger. How does the body identify you are hungry? The hypothalamus in the brain causes hunger. Signals are sent from the liver and stomach to message the brain of hunger. When hungry your

This system is comprised of Pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) and AgRP neurons of the arcuate hypothalamus (Arc), neuropeptides α-MSH and AgRP, and central melanocortin receptors (MCRs) MC3R and MC4R. POMC and AgRP neurons monitor energy state and change their activity to alter feeding and body weight. When energy needs are met, POMC neurons release α-MSH which acts as an agonist on MC3R and MC4R. AgRP is released in response to an energy deficit and acts as an inverse agonist/antagonist of the central MCRs. Activation of POMC and AgRP neuron signaling has an opposite effect on feeding behavior such that the stimulation of POMC neurons or injection of MCR agonist decreases food intake and body weight27-29 , whereas AgRP neuron activation, central administration or overexpression of AgRP stimulates food intake and weight gain27,30-33. In addition to neuropeptide-mediated signaling, both POMC and AgRP neurons are also capable of fast neurotransmission via Glutamate and/or GABA34-36 and this neurotransmission has been suggested to play an important role in the ability of POMC and AgRP neurons to control feeding27,32. Although much is known about the role of AgRP and POMC neurons in the regulation of feeding and body weight, there is still much to be learned about the larger role these neurons play in energy homeostasis, including their interactions with non-homeostatic circuits, and a better understanding of the role GABA and Glutamate released from POMC and AgRP neurons play in feeding

It takes a lot for our body to process the things that we smell and taste. Our sense of smell and taste are connected and it may change as you get older. You may not be able to handle those spicy foods like you once did. The things that we smell and taste effects are daily life. Wether we use them for enjoying our favorite meal or dangerous chemicals. We need them more than we realize. And you cant truly enjoy one without the other. There are several diseases and events that can take those

Ghrelin is the first hormone to be identified that increases feeding when administered peripherally. All of the other known orexigenic peptide transmitters such as neuropeptide Y, orexin, agoutirelated peptide (AGRP), melanocortin-concentrating hormone, and galanin stimulate feeding only when administered into the brain. The observations that circulating ghrelin levels surge suddenly before a meal and fall sharply after a meal, suggest that ghrelin serves as a signal for initiation of feeding. Interestingly, ghrelin increases the number but not the size of meals. However, ghrelin does not only play a role in regulating short-term feeding, but it also regulates body weight over the long-term (Cummings et al.,

Smell, taste, touch, sight and hearing, are all senses that individuals take for granted every day. These senses allow humans to better understand their environment. Two senses that is important to an individual everyday meal, is the sense of smell and taste. Smell allows the aromas around the meal, to enter the nose to determine if the meal either smells good or bad. Taste gives the mouth the opportunity to understand if a meal either needs more seasoning or if it is just perfect. Taste and smell can also bring back a memory that is associated with a particular meal. These memories could be a harmful memory from a fight in a restaurant, or a delightful time with Grandmother in the kitchen.

Ghrelin has largely been implicated in the research on prevention and treatment of obesity because of its role in GH secretion and appetite regulation. It has been demonstrated by many studies, that obese individuals have a marked decrease in GH secretion. Since GH is a hormone involved in many metabolic processes, low levels of GH could have significant effects on how the body is able to process food and store nutrients. Studies have found that an inverse correlation exists between BMI and both GH and ghrelin levels (McKibben,

There is an understanding that motivation is a driving force on behavior, but what remains unknown is where the purpose and execution of a motivated behavior converge within the brain. The hypothalamus plays an essential role in the integration of sensory information to direct motivated behaviors that maintain homeostasis in the body. A behavior that largely results from motivation is feeding, which has a reinforcing and rewarding property that stimulates the want for food. Feeding behavior illustrates regulation at the level of the hypothalamus a want supported by the dopamine reward system, and a relationship between food and mood provided by serotonin.

Genetic deficiencies could impair fat cells’ ability to produce leptin, an appetite-suppressing hormone, or the body’s ability to respond to it. People with such genetic deficiencies, thus, tend to eat more increasing their chance of obesity. Many obese people, however, have high levels of appetite-suppressing hormones. Appetite-controlling hormones affect the hypothalamus and body’s pleasure systems. They prompt and inhibit eating by controlling pleasure signals that are triggered by the body’s reward system. Pleasurable effects of modern, highly tempting food could sometimes overpower the appetite-suppressing hormones, and thus, increase the desire to eat despite the negative consequences. This weight gain causes the body to increase the

Next, we looked at the olfactory responses of the remaining six odorants from the panel of seven that were mentioned above. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, starved and non-starved larvae were subjected to the two-choice assay after 2 hours of the starvation protocol. Data collected for all seven different odorants are shown in Figure 2. Of all the seven odorants tested, only three odorants showed significant changes in response indices upon starvation. Acetal (shown in Figure 1), 4, 5-dimethylthiazole, and pentyl acetate were the three odorants that showed higher RI values for starved state larvae when compared to non-starved larvae. In other words, for these three odorants starved larvae had higher attractiveness towards odorants compared to non-starved larvae. This supported our hypothesis that individual ORNs might be differentially modulated by the animal’s starved state.

In the current study, there is a significant negative correlation between leptin and ghrelin, , meaning when one increases, the other decreases.

Food palatability refers to an organism 's subjective experience of food and can be either positive or aversive. As a result, this is generally associated with reward "liking". The reward value attributed to obtaining different foods plays a role in determining an organism 's actions, and is thus referred to as reward "wanting". These "liking" and "wanting" pathways were previously thought to be processed by similar, linked, neural structures including the nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum and were thought to go hand in hand (Smith & Berridge, 2007). However, many researchers now suggests otherwise. Studies still indicate that the nucleus accumbens shell