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SUMMARY:Eating and over-eating: a cognitive perspective - Paul Fletcher\, 
 Bernard Wolfe Professor of Health Neuroscience\; Wellcome Trust Sernior Re
 search Fellow in Clinical Science Department of Psychiatry and Institute o
 f Metabolic Science\, University of Cambridge Cambridgeshire and Peterboro
 ugh NHS Foundation T
DTSTART:20160520T153000Z
DTEND:20160520T170000Z
UID:TALK65492@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Louise White
DESCRIPTION:Obesity has often been thought of primarily as a metabolic con
 dition but there is an increasing tendency to consider it as a “neurobeh
 avioural syndrome with metabolic consequences”. This has led to a corres
 ponding growth in the application of cognitive neuroscience approaches\, p
 articularly functional neuroimaging\, to understanding over-eating and wei
 ght gain. However\, the results of such studies have proven inconsistent a
 nd accompanying brain-based models of obesity\, such as food addiction\, o
 r altered reward processing\, have\, when the literature is viewed as a wh
 ole\, received little convincing support. To me\, the overwhelming message
  of this growing literature\, is that there are many\, interacting causes 
 of obesity and the challenge for the field is to begin to comprehend this 
 phenotypic heterogeneity.\nCurrent ideas of brain function have come to em
 phasise its participation in the overall effort of maintaining the stabili
 ty of the organism within an environment that is both generally predictabl
 e but also\, at differing timescales\, complex and changing. By learning a
 bout\, predicting and capitalising on environmental regularity\, the syste
 m as a whole survives and thrives. This perspective - essentially one of t
 he brain as a homeostatic organ- offers a powerful framework for thinking 
 about how it contributes to appetite\, eating and weight control.\nWe can 
 conceive the complex array of appetitive behaviours as emerging from the b
 rain’s integration of an array of interoceptive and environmental signal
 s and\, as such\, a comprehensive understanding of the brain’s role in o
 besity cannot be developed without reference to these signals\, to how the
  brain integrates them and to how it uses them to select and motivate high
 ly complex (and\, sometimes apparently irrational and harmful) behaviours.
  I will aim to show how we are beginning to link traditional homeostatic v
 iews of eating with computational and cognitive concepts drawn from neuros
 cientific studies of learning and decision-making. I will illustrate this 
 by presenting data from behavioural\, psychopharmacological and neuroimagi
 ng studies.\n\n
LOCATION:Ground Floor Lecture Theatre\, Department of Psychology
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