Abstract submissions are open for SSIB's 33rd Annual Meeting!

www.ssib.org/2026/abstrac...

The annual meeting will be from August 5-9, 2026 in Philadelphia, PA.

Travel Awards Available to support students, post-docs, and new and international investigators:

www.ssib.org/web/awards.php

Looking forward to our MARS Speakers at the 33rd Annual SSIB meeting this year! We will be hearing from Corby Martin, @camillanord.bsky.social, Randy Seely, and Daniela Cota. Join us August 5-9 in Philadelphia, PA!

Can vitamins shape appetite? What whole foods do—and ultra-processed foods quietly undo.

open.substack.com/pub/markscha...

MDPRC retreat 2025

The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning, Trends in Cognitive Sciences

"The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning"
http://dlvr.it/TPHbz0

Frederike H. Petzschner, @danasmall.bsky.social & colleagues
@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social
#SfN2025

Photograph of a half-eaten jam doughnut. Image by Alexander Fox | PlaNet Fox from Pixabay.

Is overeating driven by hedonism? @danasmall.bsky.social &co argue that the pleasure of eating food is not a driver of the #obesity epidemic, but rather the regular consumption of an unhealthy diet blunts sensitivity to interoceptive signals that drive food reward #neurosky 🧪
plos.io/4nTlHQc

Amid lots of uncertainty, anger, and exhaustion I am excited to share this work from my incredibly talented MSTP and @nuincomm.bsky.social student Haley Province. In it we explore the fascinating and powerful anti-aversive properties of GIPR agonists

Early worsening of diabetic retinopathy in individuals with type 2 diabetes treated with tirzepatide: a real-world cohort study - Diabetologia Aims/hypothesis Early worsening of diabetic retinopathy (EWDR) has been described during treatment with glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists including subcutaneous semaglutide. Whether EWDR occur...

The GLP-1RA/GIP agonist tirzepatide increased risk of early worsening of diabetic #retinopathy in #T2D, similar to effects of GLP-1RA treatment but conversely had a protective effect against new retinal complications in those without retinopathy
link.springer.com/article/10.1... 🔓

One third of kids 12-17 in the US have pre-diabetes. gis.cdc.gov/grasp/diabet...

Double-blind placebo controlled trial (led by UAB faculty Dr. Timothy Garvey) demonstrates >20% weight loss with co-administration of cagrilintide (which targets amylin receptors) with semaglutide (which targets GLP-1 receptors).
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Something is Wrong with Onions They are getting less irritating and less pungent, which means they’re losing flavour. That isn’t good.

I think Mark is onto something with this one. Totally agree that there is something wrong with onions. open.substack.com/pub/markscha...

Nothing beats the feeling when your research gets picked up by the media! 🎉 Our latest study is featured on NRK – so great to see science reaching a wider audience. 🔬📰 #ScienceCommunication #NRK

www.nrk.no/trondelag/kj...

Congratulations on the award and fantastic talk!

The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning Rewards play a crucial role in sculpting all motivated behavior. Traditionally, research on reinforcement learning has centered on how rewards guide l…

For the past couple of years I met weekly with 3 amazing younger scientists @lilweb.bsky.social @debyee.bsky.social @rikepetzschner.bsky.social to share ideas and teach each other. No agenda. It was often the favorite part of my week. Then we started writing. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#ResearchRewind: "Habitual daily intake of a sweet and fatty snack modulates reward processing in humans" http://dlvr.it/TKpXYF

@cp-cellmetabolism.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social

It isn't carbs. It isn't fat. It's both. A new body of research shows that the two nutrients are more powerful together than they are apart.

open.substack.com/pub/markscha...

A drop of milkshake takes a wild ride as it passes through the body. Rachel and Kiersten and the team came up with cool strategies for visualizing food passing through the mouse GI tract and mapping the activity of the same 100s of brainstem neurons across weeks during feeding and other behaviors.

The Ingredients' Ingredients Is it possible for science to grasp the complexity of ultraprocessed foods?

open.substack.com/pub/markscha.... As a former president of the society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior @ssib, I recommend this great read describing what we are up against

Neurogenesis Speaker Series. March 26, 2025, 4:30-5:30 p.m. at the Neuro ft. Dana Small and Yashar Zeighami

Join us for the next edition of Neurogenesis on March 26 at @theneuro.bsky.social, featuring @danasmall.bsky.social & @yasharneuro.bsky.social!

Learn about their research on gut-brain connections and the aging brain & network with peers at the post-event reception.🧠

Register now: mcgill.ca/x/iw5

A dual-pathway architecture for stress to disrupt agency and promote habit - Nature Adaptive decision-making often requires an understanding of our agency in a situation; however, chronic stress can disrupt agency and promote inflexible, habitual behaviour by turning off a brain path...

🚨📃New Wassum Lab Paper📃🚨

Out today, @jackiegio.bsky.social discovered brain pathways that support agency and habit and how chronic stress disrupts them to rob of us our agency and cause us to form rigid habits 🧵👇

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Free full text: rdcu.be/eaxEv

25D4-Event Promo-V2 This is "25D4-Event Promo-V2" by Keystone Symposia on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

Please join us for the Neurobiology of Ingestive Behavior Keystone Conference in spectacular Pacific Grove. vimeo.com/1058375928/2...

A collage of figures from the 350 papers published in Imaging Neuroscience in 2024.

2024 was the first full calendar year for Imaging Neuroscience @mitpress - 350 papers published.

We're proud of how the brain imaging community enthusiastically embraced open access non-profit publishing. Our aim is to be *your* journal.

Full size PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/1M170...

Looking forward to reading this one. www.cambridge.org/core/service...

Identification of the subventricular tegmental nucleus as brainstem reward center Rewards are essential for motivation, decision-making, memory, and mental health. We identified the subventricular tegmental nucleus (SVTg) as a brainstem reward center. In mice, reward and its predic...

Very cool! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Lotte Bjerre Knudsen: The Scientist Who Drove GLP-1 Drugs For Obesity and Alzheimer's Facts, data, and analytics about biomedical matters.

The scientist who is responsible for driving GLP-1 drugs for the treatment of obesity and testing them for prevention of Alzheimer's disease—Lotte Bjerre Knudsen— tells her story in a remarkable conversation. Full transcript, or video, all free, no ads.
erictopol.substack.com/p/lotte-bjer...

Our manuscript was accepted for publication just before Christmas 🎁

Photo credit @dokkum.bsky.social

One of the amazing wonders of South Pacific Costa Rica.

Postingestive reward acts through behavioral reinforcement and is conserved in obesity and after bariatric surgery Obesity has been associated with altered reward-related eating behavior and brain changes that may be related to overeating. This behavioral and neuroimaging study shows that postingestive nutrient st...

Interesting new paper showing flavor nutrient conditioning is associated with D2R binding potential, intake and not pleasantness. Also conserved in obesity and after bariatric surgery. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

New neighbors. Puntarenas Costa Rica.