The Department of Translational Medicine and Physiology welcomes Dr. Shane Hentges, professor and chair, WSU Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience, on Tuesday, June 11. She will be providing her seminar at noon, “Exploring the underpinning of anorexia in an animal model: distinct regulation of food intake and food-entrainment,” in SAC 345 and via Zoom.
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.
We look forward to you joining us in person (SAC 345) or through Zoom!
Questions/Zoom link? Contact Michelle Sanchez at michelle.r.sanchez@wsu.edu.
