Descrizione del progetto
Analizzare per quale motivo i cambiamenti legati a uno stile di vita sano siano così difficili da mantenere
Un pasto tipico da fast food (hamburger, patatine fritte e bibite) è ad alto contenuto di grassi saturi, zuccheri, sale e calorie, mentre ha un basso valore nutrizionale. Per di più, non comporta alcuno sforzo: il fast food è facile da ottenere e persino più facile da mangiare. Al contrario, uno stile di vita sano è più difficile da mantenere. Il progetto OBESITY_SPIRAL, finanziato dall’UE, analizzerà il fattore motivazionale correlato allo sforzo nell’obesità, che è una grave minaccia per la salute umana. Esso è volto a chiarire i meccanismi neurocognitivi inerenti al processo decisionale basato sullo sforzo nelle persone obese. A tal fine, questo progetto studierà le possibilità per cui l’infiammazione cronica a basso grado, provocata dall’eccesso di grasso corporeo, possa influire sul sistema dopaminergico del cervello, riducendo il comportamento fruttuoso.
Obiettivo
Obesity is a major threat to human health, often characterized by increased consumption of energy-dense and easy-to-eat, ‘effortless fast food’. A better understanding of effort-related motivation in obesity is important to explain why healthy lifestyle changes are often so hard to maintain. Previously, I have demonstrated the neurocognitive and neurochemical processes underlying motivational control of behaviour. However, in obesity, findings about the motivation to overcome effort costs for food reward – and associated dopamine signalling - are inconsistent, suggesting another – yet unknown - variable. Here, I am the first to suggest that this variable is chronic low-grade inflammation - as a direct result of excess body fat. Peripheral inflammation can affect the brain dopamine system to decrease effortful behaviour, enforcing the downwards spiral of obesity. However, how an elevated inflammatory tone in obesity relates to effort-based decision-making is currently unknown. Here, I aim to elucidate the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying effort-based decision-making in human obesity and the explanatory role of inflammation, using both an observational and a supplementation design with the anti-inflammatory aspirin-like drug salsalate. Moreover, I will determine the causal role of dopamine in effort-based decision-making in obesity by employing acute administration of the dopamine precursor levodopa, and I will study levodopa’s effects as a function of inflammatory tone. I will develop a novel fMRI paradigm that dissociates food reward anticipation, reward sensitivity versus effort avoidance during effort decision, effort exertion and reward consumption. Lab findings will be translated to real life with experience sampling methods. This innovative, interdisciplinary approach will elucidate the inflammation-effort link in obesity and explain inconsistent findings about dopamine abnormalities and effortful behaviour in obesity.
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-STG - Starting GrantIstituzione ospitante
6525 XZ Nijmegen
Paesi Bassi