Brain mechanisms of liking & wanting food rewards

Seminar Abstract: The pleasure of tasty foods, and the desire to eat them, arise in our brains – not simply in the foods themselves.  This talk will describe how a brain network of small hedonic hotspots generate intense ‘liking’ for food, and how larger brain mesolimbic systems generate ‘wanting’ to eat.  It will also consider interactions between brain hunger-satiety systems and brain reward systems, and how brain mechanisms for natural appetite relate to addictions.