Dr Suzanne Higgs has been awarded an £800,000 project grant from the BBSRC to investigate how the pleasure of eating is affected by cognitive functions like memory.

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Suzanne Higgs and colleagues from Birmingham, Swansea and Oxford have been awarded the grant to investigate how the metabolic signals that are generated when we consume food affect the pleasure of eating by modulating higher cognitive functions.

This is a new approach to the study of appetite and the findings may help develop more effective interventions to help people control their food intake.

Dr Jason Thomas, a current postdoctoral researcher in the School of Psychology at Birmingham, will be undertaking the work to examine the effects of administering drugs that mimic metabolic signals on eating behaviour and the associated brain activity.