ABSTRACT
Food is a necessity for our survival. Food consumption is so essential to our basic ability to function that a number of systems have evolved to ensure that we can find and consume food. Systems associated with attention, memory, reward and motivation are integral to feeding behavior. External cues (e.g., the sight and smell of food) and internal cues (e.g., feelings of hunger) are important drivers of food consumption. When gut peptides associated with hunger become elevated, we find food-related cues in our environment more salient (Tapper et al., 2010) and foods taste more pleasant (Siep et al., 2009). Cues that become coupled with food consumption are encoded in our memory to assist us in identifying food sources in the future (Morris and Dolan, 2001). Exposure to these food cues activates neural systems involved in motivation (e.g., mesolimbic dopaminergic system), thus increasing our willingness to seek out these foods (Robinson and Berridge, 2000). Not all foods are equally capable of engaging these systems. Historically, food could often be scarce and the consumption of high-calorie foods provided a greater likelihood of surviving famine. Higher calorie foods are generally more effective in engaging attention, reward and motivation systems (Stoeckel et al., 2008), perhaps to provide an incentive to seek out these foods and increase the odds of survival. Further, inhibitory control systems can be effective in controlling behavior and motivation (Logan et al., 1997). However, given that food has historically been scarce, the ability of these inhibitory control systems to successfully reduce the drive for food may be underdeveloped and contribute to a greater vulnerability to the current obesogenic environment.
