Effects of fasting and sleep deprivation on value-based and perceptual decision-making (C05)

• Subject Area: Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 222193485

Making suboptimal food choices leads to overeating, weight-gain and ultimately obesity. Sleep-deprivation (SD) has been linked to increased food intake and obesity risk but the role of dopamine (DA) neurotransmission (known to be altered in obesity, affected by SD and regulated in part by homeostasis-related hormones) in these effects is unclear. In the current project we directly examine the role of DA transmission in decision-making and learning from food rewards via fMRI, raclopride PET and hormonal measures. Average sleep duration in western societies continues to decline, and the present results will shed further light on the hormonal and dopaminergic underpinnings of how sleep deprivation affects food choice, learning and thereby potentially obesity risk.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 134: Ingestive Behaviour: Homeostasis and Reward
• Applicant Institution: Universität zu Lübeck
• Co-Applicant Institution: Universität Hamburg; Universität zu Köln
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Jan Peters; Professor Dr. Leonhard Schilbach, until 12/2017