The brain governs food intake behaviour by integrating many different internal and external state and trait-related signals. Understanding how the decisions to start and to stop eating are made is crucial to our understanding of (maladaptive patterns of) eating behaviour. Here, we aim to (1) review the current state of the field of 'nutritional neuroscience' with a focus on the interplay between food-induced brain responses and eating behaviour and (2) highlight research needs and techniques that could be used to address these. The brain responses associated with sensory stimulation (sight, olfaction and taste), gastric distension, gut hormone administration and food consumption are the subject of increasing investigation. Nevertheless, only few studies have examined relations between brain responses and eating behaviour. However, the neural circuits underlying eating behaviour are to a large extent generic, including reward, selfcontrol, learning and decision-making circuitry. These limbic and prefrontal circuits interact with the hypothalamus, a key homeostatic area. Target areas for further elucidating the regulation of food intake are: (eating) habit and food preference formation and modification, the neural correlates of self-control, nutrient sensing and dietary learning, and the regulation of body adiposity. Moreover, to foster significant progress, data from multiple studies need to be integrated. This requires standardisation of (neuroimaging) measures, data sharing and the application and development of existing advanced analysis and modelling techniques to nutritional neuroscience data. In the next 20 years, nutritional neuroscience will have to prove its potential for providing insights that can be used to tackle detrimental eating behaviour.
Functional MRI: Eating behaviour: Peptide hormones: Personality characteristicsFood is required for survival and therefore is a primary reward. Abundance of food has become a greater problem than food shortage: the number of overweight and obese people exceeds that of those suffering from undernutrition (1) . Obesity is driven by rapid changes in our food environment (2,3) which promote overeating. Such eating behaviour is maladaptive in the longer term. This review addresses the interactions between foods, the gut and the brain, which give rise to eating behaviour (Fig. 1). With 'eating behaviour' we refer to food choice, meal frequency and meal size (where a 'meal' includes eating occasions such as eating a snack food or drinking something energetic). Eating behaviour is determined by eating decisions, namely what to eat, when to start and when to stop eating. These decisions are taken in the brain, which integrates a multitude of neural and hormonal signals reflecting internal state and the environment. They determine diet nutrient composition, eating frequency and portion size, i.e., a person's diet. Understanding how eating decisions come about is crucial for understanding maladaptive patterns of Abbreviations: ALE, activation-likelihood estimation; fMRI, f...