Food and the Brain

The purpose of this seminar course is to explore brain function through the lens of food. Why do we get hungry? How do we search for food? Why do we like some tastes and not others? What is the relationship between what we eat and our cognitive function or even our cognitive evolution? We will learn about the life-essential functions of obscure neural circuits and the more obscure processes of commonly known neural circuits. Over the course of the semester, we will move from neuropeptides to cooking culture; from gut-brain interactions via microbes to the importance of teeth on our neuroanatomy.