By Washington State University – Department of Translational Medicine and Physiology

Exploring the underpinning of anorexia in an animal model: distinct regulation of food intake and food-entrainment

June 11, 2024
Noon–1:00 P.M. PDT
SAC 345 or via Zoom
Meeting ID: 963 8794 9615
Passcode: 473719

Speaker: Shane Hentges, PhD
Chair of the Department of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience and the Director of the Neuroscience Program, Washington State University

Dr. Hentges studies food intake and reward with specific interest in how hedonic drives can motivate behaviors that are detrimental to health, such as in substance use and eating disorders. Current studies in this lab are primarily focused on the proopiomelanocortin neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus and their connections. These neurons play a critical role in maintaining energy balance and they release endorphins to encode reward.

Work in the Hentges lab has traditionally used electrophysiology, transgenic animal models, and imaging approaches to uncover details about the neural regulation of food intake and energy balance. However, recently while exploring mechanistic underpinnings of anorexia, they stumbled into new areas including behavior and motivation. In this presentation, Dr. Hentges will discuss their recent results regarding the food-entrainable oscillator and a possible link to reward and food intake circuits.