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The hippocampus and the regulation of human food intake
Stevenson & Francis (2017) reviewed known, suspected and newly hypothesised hippocampal-dependent functions involved in regulating food intake and for each, evidence was presented for hippocampal involvement, its putative regulatory role was described, and hypothesised effects of hippocampal impairment were also discussed. These functions dependent on the hippocampus of the brain included: declarative memory processes, and their use in explicitly evaluating when, what and how much to eat; interoception, (since it relates to hunger, fullness and thirst); inhibitory processes and their role in modulating memory retrieval; craving and imagery for food; perception of time and its involvement in the preparation of the body for food consumption and estimating meal length; trace conditioning and nutrient-related learning; and inhibition of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress response and stress-related eating. It was concluded that the hippocampus is involved in the regulation of food intake via multiple interconnected pathways, many of which are either understudied or not studied yet. [NPID: interoception, interoceptive awareness, hippocampus, memory, hunger, fullness, thirst, meal length, stress]
Year: 2017
