Green light for new EU project - NeuroFAST
News: Jun 03, 2010
NeuroFAST, a large multidisciplinary research project looking into the neurobiological and socio-psychological causes of overeating and substance use disorders, has been awarded funding of EUR 6 million from the EU. The project brings together scientists from seven countries and is being coordinated from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. It aims to provide answers to what mechanisms cause people to eat too much and so run the risk of obesity.
NeuroFAST (The Integrated Neurobiology of Food Intake, Addiction and Stress), to give the project its full name, will involve 13 research groups in seven different countries: Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, the UK, Germany, Hungary and Spain. This breadth means that the project will have a very large group of patients on which to base its studies. Now that the negotiations are complete, the researchers can begin work on the actual project, which is due to run for five years.
The scientists involved in the project work in fields such as psychology, epidemiology, genetics, nutrition and endocrinology, and are all internationally recognised experts in their fields.
“There are many different causes that together contribute to obesity,” says professor Suzanne Dickson from the Sahlgrenska Academy, who is coordinating this EU project. “Although the purely biological factors are very significant, the cultural, sociological and psychological aspects are just as important, so we want to create a complete picture of the problem.”
She is looking forward to the new opportunities and challenges thrown up by the project. Among other things, the researchers hope to discover new neurobiological mechanisms behind the key question in the project: Why do some people eat too much?
“We will therefore be studying the processes connected with the addiction system in the brain and looking for answers to why people abuse food or eat due to anxiety and stress.”
At the Sahlgrenska Academy, Suzanne Dickson and her colleagues will be focusing on how the central nervous system regulates the appetite. The Swedish research team is particularly interested in the role of the mesolimbic system, the part of the brain that regulates the motivation to eat and also pleasure aspects of eating.
“There is a neurological reward system for food which has many similarities to the reward system for alcohol,” she says. “This reward system makes it enjoyable to eat, but it can also make us dependent. We will be looking in detail at how different hormones and other substances interact in this reward system.”
For more information, please contact:
Professor Suzanne L. Dickson, tel: +46 31 786 3568, e-mail: suzanne.dickson@gu.se