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Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary (2015)

Chapter: Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
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C

Speaker Biographical Sketches

Nicole Avena, Ph.D., is assistant professor of pharmacology and systems therapeutics at Ichan School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, New York City. She has published more than 60 scholarly journal articles on topics related to diet, nutrition, and overeating. Her research achievements have been recognized by the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Psychological Association, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Avena received a Ph.D. in psychology and neuroscience from Princeton University in 2006 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Rockefeller University.

Eric Decker, Ph.D., is currently a professor and head of the Department of Food Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Decker is actively conducting research to characterize mechanisms of lipid oxidation, antioxidant protection of foods, and the health implications of bioactive lipids. He has authored more than 325 publications, and he is listed as one of the most highly cited scientists in agriculture. Dr. Decker has served on numerous committees for institutions such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Institute of Medicine, the Institute of Food Technologists, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the American Heart Association. Recognition for his research includes awards from the American Oil Chemists Society, the Agriculture and Food Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society, the International Life Science Institute, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Institute of Food Technologists. Dr. Decker is a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Food Forum. He obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. in food science and nutrition from Washington State University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, respectively.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
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Laurette Dubé, Ph.D., M.P.S., M.B.A., holds the James McGill Chair of Consumer and Lifestyle Psychology and Marketing at the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University. Dr. Dubé is founding chair and scientific director of the McGill Center for the Convergence of Health and Economics. Her research investigates the cognitions, affects, and behavioral economic processes underlying consumption and lifestyle behavior and brings complexity sciences to bear in examining how such knowledge can inspire more effective communication, successful health-sensitive innovation, and ecosystem transformation for convergence between health and economics. Dr. Dubé has authored numerous scientific publications in both books and journals. Her work has been cited in Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she received her Ph.D. from Cornell University, an M.P.S. in marketing and management from Cornell University, an M.B.A. in finances from École des Hautes Études Commerciales (Montreal), and a B.Sc. in nutrition from Laval University.

Ashley Gearhardt, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of clinical psychology at the University of Michigan. While working on her doctorate in clinical psychology at Yale University, Dr. Gearhardt became interested in the possibility that certain foods may be capable of triggering an addictive process. To explore this possibility further, she developed the Yale Food Addiction Scale to operationalize addictive-like eating behavior, which recently has been linked with more frequent binge eating episodes in clinical populations, increased prevalence of obesity, and patterns of neural activation implicated in other addictive behaviors. Dr. Gearhardt also investigates the impact of certain components of the food environment, such as food advertising, on obesity risk through the use of multimethod approaches (e.g., neuroimaging, eye tracking). She is currently directing the Food and Addiction Science and Treatment laboratory to further evaluate whether an addictive-like mechanism contributes to certain types of problematic eating behavior. Dr. Gearhardt received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Yale University.

Danielle Greenberg, Ph.D., F.A.C.N., is nutrition director in PepsiCo’s Research and Development organization. At PepsiCo she is responsible for providing scientific expertise on issues concerning beverages, nutrition, and health. Dr. Greenberg joined PepsiCo as part of the Public Affairs and Science and Regulatory Affairs groups and was responsible for communications both internally and externally in the areas of nutrition and scientific affairs. She began her career as an academic researcher and was an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Cornell University Medical College. Her area of research was the physiology of obesity, with specific

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×

focuses on how dietary fats lead to satiety, the role of fat intake in obesity, the satiating potency of dietary fats, how fats control food intake, how brain gut peptides work in hunger and fullness, and the neural processes mediating food intake. Prior to joining PepsiCo, Dr. Greenberg worked for Nutrition 21, a science-driven nutritional products company. She is a fellow of the American College of Nutrition and of The Obesity Society. She received a Ph.D. in biological psychology from the City University of New York.

Joseph Herskovic, Ph.D., is based in Omaha, Nebraska. During his 23 years in the food and beverage industry, he has created, led, or been part of five sensory evaluation departments, including departments at Frito-Lay, Uncle Ben’s, Seagram’s, Product Dynamics, and ConAgra Foods. For 7 years he conducted research on nicotine addiction and smoking cessation at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine and the Duke University School of Medicine as an assistant research psychologist and director of clinical trials, respectively. Dr. Herskovic has published in the areas of neuroscience, psychology, psychopharmacology, and sensory science and has taught university-level short courses on sensory discrimination testing. He holds a Ph.D. in neuropsychology from the City University of New York.

Sophie Kergoat, Ph.D., is senior research scientist at the Wrigley Company (a subsidiary of Mars Inc.) in Chicago, with responsibility for developing scientific support in human behavior and brain activity. This work involves the identification of new areas for product innovation, the coordination of external and internal studies to provide scientific and clinical support for scientific claims, and the development of relationships with consultants and research organizations. Dr. Kergoat is currently working to develop a platform of research focused on the effect of gum chewing on various aspects of the human physiology. She joined Mars Inc. Europe in 2007 as a research scientist to undertake research projects in human behavior and to develop leading-edge cognitive sciences technology using world-class expertise. This work encompassed areas ranging from the effectiveness of consumer communication to understanding of consumer behavior to such areas as scientific and external affairs. Previously, Dr. Kergoat held a position as lecturer in human sciences at the University Paris Descartes and at the University of Basse-Normandie and collaborated with a team of researchers at C.N.R.S. (National French Scientific Center) in Paris. She holds a Ph.D. in cognitive science from University Paris Descartes in partnership with the Berchet Company and a professional degree in psychology (neuropsychology).

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×

Joseph Levitt, J.D., is a partner at Hogan Lovells US LLP in Washington, DC. Mr. Levitt is a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA); he served as director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) for 6 years. He counsels numerous food companies and trade associations in food safety, labeling, and compliance matters and in how to work effectively with FDA. He is a recognized expert in the Food Safety Modernization Act, including all phases of its development and implementation. While serving as CFSAN director, Mr. Levitt led successful efforts to modernize food safety regulation and enhance the security of the U.S. food supply. He also initiated a revitalization of FDA’s nutrition program. During his earlier FDA tenure, while in the Office of the Commissioner, he helped streamline the new drug review process and launch the agency’s food labeling initiative. Additionally, he served as deputy director for regulations and policy at FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. Mr. Levitt began his FDA career in the Office of Chief Counsel. He has received a Top Tier ranking from Chambers for food and beverage lawyers. While at FDA he received numerous honors and awards, including three Presidential Executive Rank Awards. More recently, he received the FDA Distinguished Alumni Award. Mr. Levitt earned his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Cornell University and his J.D. degree, cum laude, from Boston University School of Law.

Robert F. Margolskee, M.D., Ph.D., is director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, where he joined the faculty in 2009. Dr. Margolskee’s long-standing research focus is on the molecular mechanisms of taste transduction, utilizing molecular biology, biochemistry, structural biology, electrophysiology, and transgenesis to study the mechanisms of signal transduction in mammalian taste cells. More recently he has been studying the chemosensory functions of taste-signaling proteins in gut and pancreatic endocrine cells. Dr. Margolskee has made numerous seminal discoveries in the taste field, including the identification and molecular cloning of taste-specific receptors and G proteins. In 1992, his laboratory discovered gustducin, a taste cell-expressed G protein. Subsequently, Dr. Margolskee demonstrated that gustducin is critical to the transduction of compounds that humans consider bitter, sweet, or umami. Much of his current work is focused on taste-like cells of the gut and endocrine properties of taste cells. In 2007, Dr. Margolskee published two papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America shedding light on how the gut “tastes” nutrients, a new area of research with important implications for diabetes and obesity. Most recently his group identified the previously elusive adult taste stem cells. Among Dr. Margolskee’s honors and awards are the Monell Mastertaste-Manheimer Award and the International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) Award. He received his A.B. in

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×

biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University and his M.D. and Ph.D. in molecular genetics from Johns Hopkins University.

Richard D. Mattes, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., is a distinguished professor of nutrition science at Purdue University, adjunct associate professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and affiliated scientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center. His research focuses on the areas of hunger and satiety, regulation of food intake in humans, food preferences, human cephalic phase responses, and taste and smell. At Purdue University, Dr. Mattes is director of the Ingestive Behavior Research Center and director of the Public Health Program. He also holds numerous external responsibilities, including serving as associate editor of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and serving on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Nutrition, Chemosensory Perception, the Ear, Nose, and Throat Journal, and the journal Flavour. Dr. Mattes has received multiple awards, most recently the Babcock-Hart Award from the Institute of Food Technologists. He has authored more than 225 publications. Dr. Mattes earned an undergraduate degree in biology and an M.P.H. from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. in human nutrition from Cornell University.

Timothy Moran, Ph.D., is the Paul R. McHugh Professor of Motivated Behaviors and vice chair and director of research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Moran’s research interests are in brain/behavior relationships as they apply to motivated behaviors. His work has focused on brain/gut peptides as feedback controls of meal size and how they interact with neural systems involved in overall energy balance and reward processing, in particular how they may go awry in eating disorders and obesity. Additional projects examine how gestational and early developmental factors can bias metabolic and neural programming to contribute to obesity and stress reactivity and the effects of exercise on diet preference and overall energy balance. Dr. Moran has been active in leadership roles in The Obesity Society and the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior. He received his Ph.D. in biopsychology from Johns Hopkins University and has been on the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine since 1984.

Charles P. O’Brien, M.D., Ph.D., is the Kenneth E. Appel Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He also established and directs a clinical research program that has had a major impact on the treatment of addictive disorders. His work involves discovery of central nervous system changes involved in relapse, new medications, behavioral treatments, and instruments for measuring the severity of addictive disorders. Dr. O’Brien

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×

led the discovery of the effects of alcohol on the endogenous opioid system and developed a completely new treatment for alcoholism. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1991 and has received numerous research and teaching awards as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Bordeaux. Dr. O’Brien is past president of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease. He earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Tulane University.

Robert C. Ritter, V.M.D., Ph.D., is professor of integrative physiology and neuroscience in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University. Dr. Ritter investigates neural and endocrine controls of appetite and body weight. He is especially interested in how signals from the gastrointestinal tract and body fat alter food intake and metabolism by modulating neural signaling in the hindbrain. Dr. Ritter is very interested in how neurotransmitters and hormones trigger short- and long-lasting neuroplastic changes in the hindbrain and how such changes produce alterations in feeding behavior that favor weight gain or weight loss. His experimental approach to these issues is multidisciplinary and collaborative, combining neuroanatomy, cell and molecular biology, electrophysiology, and behavioral testing. Dr. Ritter is active in a number of scientific societies and currently serves on the executive board for the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior. He is a member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Physiology and has been a regular member of National Institutes of Health study sections, including the Neuroendocrinology, Neuro-immunology, Rhythms and Sleep study section, on which he currently serves. Dr. Ritter received his doctorate in veterinary medicine from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Peter Rogers, Ph.D., M.Sc., B.Sc., is professor of biological psychology at the School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol. His research focuses on nutrition and behavior, and a large part of this work is concerned with how physiological, learned, and cognitive controls on appetite are integrated. The results are relevant to identifying the causes of obesity and disordered eating and to understanding food choice, food craving, and food “addiction.” Dr. Rogers also works on dietary effects on mood and cognition; this work includes research on how food consumption affects alertness and attention, as well as studies of longer-term influences of diet on psychological health. Dr. Rogers links his research to his third area of interest—the psychopharmacology of caffeine. His research on this ubiquitously consumed substance began with questions about how preferences for caffeine-containing drinks develop and now focuses on caffeine’s psycho-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×

stimulant, anxiogenic, and motor effects. Caffeine provides a good example of the distinction between dependence and addiction. When frequent caffeine consumers interrupt their habit for more than half a day, they function below par (dependence), but this does not cause a strong compulsion to consume caffeine. Dr. Rogers received his B.Sc. in biology and M.Sc. in experimental psychology at the University of Sussex and his Ph.D. in eating behavior at the University of Leeds.

Edmund T. Rolls, D.Phil., D.Sc., Hon.D.Sc., M.A., is director of the Oxford Centre for Computational Neuroscience, Oxford, United Kingdom, and a professor in computational neuroscience in the Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Dr. Rolls is a neuroscientist with research interests in computational neuroscience, including the operation of real neuronal networks in the brain involved in vision, memory, attention, and decision making; functional neuroimaging of vision, taste, olfaction, feeding, control of appetite, memory, and emotion; neurological disorders of emotion; psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia; and the brain processes underlying consciousness. These studies include investigations in patients and are performed with the aim of contributing to understanding of the human brain in health and disease and treatment of its disorders. Dr. Rolls has published more than 530 research papers (many available at www.oxcns.org) and 11 books on these topics. He qualified in preclinical medicine at the University of Cambridge and received a D.Phil. and D.Sc. in neuroscience from the University of Oxford.

Dana Small, Ph.D., is professor of psychiatry at Yale Medical School, visiting professor in the Institute of Genetics at the University of Cologne, and a fellow of the John B. Pierce Laboratory. Dr. Small’s research interests are in the neurophysiology of feeding, chemical senses, neuroimaging, dopamine, addiction, motivation, psychophysics, stress, and obesity. She has served on the executive committee of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences since 2008 and on the board of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior since 2011. Dr. Small is also a member of the scientific advisory boards for the Helmholtz Alliance’s “Imaging and Curing Environmental Metabolic Diseases” and “Nudge-it,” a European-based alliance aimed at understanding decision making in food choice. She also serves on the editorial boards of Molecular Metabolism, Biological Psychiatry, Chemosensory Perception, Neuroimage: Clinical, and Frontiers of Human Neuroscience. In recognition of her contributions to the fields of flavor and ingestive behavior, Dr. Small received the Ajinomoto Award for Research in Gustation in 2003, the Moskowitz Jacobs Award for Research Excellence in the Psychophysics of Taste and Smell in 2005, the Firmenich Flavor and Fragrance Science Award in 2007, and the Ruth Pike Award for contribu-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×

tions to nutrition research in 2010. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from McGill University in 2001.

Hisham Ziauddeen, M.R.C.Psych., Ph.D., is a psychiatrist working in the Health Neuroscience group in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Ziauddeen’s research focuses on the role of the brain reward system in normal and abnormal eating behavior, using neurobehavioral, functional neuroimaging, and experimental medicine approaches. His current work is looking at the mechanisms of antipsychoticinduced weight gain in patients who are prescribed these medications. Along with his colleague Dr. Paul Fletcher, Dr. Ziauddeen has critically examined the food addiction model both in the scientific literature and in science comedy. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
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Page 116
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×
Page 117
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×
Page 118
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
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Page 120
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
×
Page 121
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Relationships Among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/21654.
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On July 9-10, 2014, the Institute of Medicine's Food Forum hosted a public workshop to explore emerging and rapidly developing research on relationships among the brain, the digestive system, and eating behavior. Drawing on expertise from the fields of nutrition and food science, animal and human physiology and behavior, and psychology and psychiatry as well as related fields, the purpose of the workshop was to (1) review current knowledge on the relationship between the brain and eating behavior, explore the interaction between the brain and the digestive system, and consider what is known about the brain's role in eating patterns and consumer choice; (2) evaluate current methods used to determine the impact of food on brain activity and eating behavior; and (3) identify gaps in knowledge and articulate a theoretical framework for future research. Relationships among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

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