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Blacksburg, VA — As obesity rates continue to climb across the United States, a pioneering team of scientists at Virginia Tech is investigating an ambitious question: Can the human brain be rewired to combat overeating and obesity?
According to the latest data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, roughly 40% of American adults aged 20 and older now meet the criteria for obesity, a sharp increase from 30% two decades ago. The condition is a well-established precursor to serious health risks, including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers. Despite growing awareness and medical advances, poor dietary habits are still estimated to contribute to over 300,000 deaths annually in the U.S.
“Decision-making surrounding food drives these health conditions,” said Dr. Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and interim co-director of the Center for Health Behaviors Research. “And decisions about what foods to eat is a leading, modifiable driver of disease burden.”
DiFeliceantonio is among the lead researchers in a bold new study supported by a $2.75 million, four-year grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The research aims to understand how obesity alters brain circuits related to reward, motivation, and emotion, and how these circuits, in turn, influence unhealthy eating behaviors.
Joining her in this interdisciplinary effort are Dr. Matt Howe, assistant professor of neuroscience at Virginia Tech’s College of Science, and Dr. Read Montague, director of the Center for Human Neuroscience Research at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute.
Innovative Approaches to Mapping the Brain’s Food-Reward System
Traditionally, the understanding of food-related brain behavior has been derived from animal studies involving bees, rodents, and non-human primates. But human behavior, particularly around complex topics like food, reward, and emotion, is far more nuanced.
“Until the advances made by Dr. Montague, we had no way of measuring these signals at sub-second timescales for food reward tasks in humans,” DiFeliceantonio explained.
Montague’s lab has pioneered real-time neurochemical monitoring techniques using electrochemical sensors implanted in patients with epilepsy who are undergoing seizure monitoring. In collaboration with Dr. Robert Bina, a neurosurgeon at Banner Health, the team is applying these methods to assess how the brain reacts chemically to sweet tastes and emotionally charged food-related stimuli.
Participants will consume sugary drinks through a custom-designed pump while engaging in tasks that measure emotional and cognitive responses to food-related words. Researchers will track neurochemical fluctuations, especially in dopamine and other reward-related chemicals, to determine how metabolic health influences these responses.
“It’s important to measure different types of rewards to understand if these brain chemicals encode something as basic as a sweet taste the same way as something complex like language,” said Dr. Howe.
Toward the Future of Obesity Treatment
The implications of this research could reshape the way we approach obesity interventions. Currently, many weight-loss drugs and behavioral therapies target the brain’s reward centers. Yet, even after weight loss, the brain doesn’t necessarily return to its pre-obese state, DiFeliceantonio notes.
Understanding what happens in the brain during and after obesity could pave the way for next-generation therapies that more effectively “rewire” the decision-making processes driving overeating.
The hope is that by pinpointing how specific neurochemical signals correlate with eating behavior and emotional responses to food, scientists may eventually develop more targeted and durable treatments for obesity—treatments that go beyond calorie counting and diet plans to address the neurological roots of compulsive eating.
Disclaimer:
This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, medication, or lifestyle based on scientific research.
