Satiation : From Gut to Brain

This volume on the neurophysiological mechanisms of satiation deals with the stimuli at sites in the mouth, stomach and intestine that initiative this negative-feedback process, provides a detailed behavioural analysis, and reviews the satiating effects of cholecystokinin, bombesin-like peptides, lucogen and insulin as well as brain serotonin.

What is it that stops the process of eating? This deceptively simple question lies at the centre of Satiation: From Gut to Brain, and the book succeeds in answering it comprehensively while incorporating the latest scientific research. Unless we stop eating by choice--for medical or social reasons--an unconscious physiological process is triggered through negative feedback from ingested food as it travels from the mouth through the stomach and on to the small intestine. This process is called satiation. Recent scientific evidence has revealed that food stimuli activate this process before the actual absorption of digested food, which significantly changes the traditional perspective that satiation depends on the post-absorptive repletion of metabolic fuels. This volume presents the first detailed account of the neurobiological mechanisms of satiation. The ten chapters of the book detail the neural, endocrine, and cellular underpinnings of the process. Authors expert in different aspects of satiation have compiled a critical overview of recent advances and current problems in this field. The inclusion of a chapter on the satiation of alcohol is unique in a book on food intake, and shows the convergence of ideas on satiation in these two areas. Comprehensive in scope and accessible to a wide array of advanced students and professonals, Satiation: From Gut to Brain is an authoritative and up-to-date review of every aspect of this important physiological process. Although intended primarily for neuroscientists, nutritionists, and psychobiologists, who will find it most pertinent to their work, the book will also be useful for physiologists, pharmacologists, and psychologists concerned with eating and its disorders.