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Hypothalamic Circuits Mediating Consumption And Anxiety, Ryan Cassidy

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

From 1960-2016, U.S. obesity prevalence increased 13-40% and diabetes increased from 3-15%. There is an epidemic of metabesity, the aggregate metabolic disorders produced by chronic overeating. Drugs for metabesity were developed in the 1930s with limited effectiveness; agents today rely on the same principles and are similarly ineffective. Particularly surprising has been the failure of satiety enhancers; this indicates it may not be that physiologic hunger drives chronic overeating. Although hunger and satiety affect traditional reward circuitry (Cassidy & Tong 2017), evidence for the primacy of this effect is mixed. Being hungry reduces anxiety-like behavior in mice; whether the …