PhD seminar – Fabien Naneix

Friday 10 January 2025 / 11:30

Venue: Centre Broca

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Fabien Naneix
Lecturer in Neuroscience
SMMSN Senior Personal Tutor
The Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen, UK

Fabien Naneix was a PhD student and a post-doctoral researcher at INCIA (Coutureau-wolff’s team) in 2012-2017

Seminar hosted by Hadrien Plat (PhD student, INCIA)

Title

“Feed your Teen Spirit”: Differential impact of unbalanced diets during adolescence on action control processes

Abstract

Appropriate control of feeding and food choice is essential for survival and for a healthy life. However, the increased availability of energy-rich unbalanced diets in modern societies drives unhealthy dietary habits and increases obesity and associated disorders, such as cardiovascular diseases or type 2 diabetes. As this incidence is now increasingly affecting children and adolescents, it appears crucial to understand how such unhealthy diets may impact cognitive and brain development and lead to long-term and long-lasting adaptive control of food choices.

In this talk, I will present new unpublished data from different projects aiming at exploring the long-term cognitive and behavioural impact of the exposure to different diets, all unbalanced in either carbohydrate, fat or protein, specifically during adolescence.

To investigate the impact of different adolescent diets on action control, we used specific behavioural approaches based on associative learning (Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning) in a mouse model. Our initial results demonstrate a complex sex- and nutrient-dependent impact of adolescent unbalanced diet on the ability to correctly control food-seeking behaviour according to changes in the value of the food (outcome devaluation), changes in action-outcome relationships (reversal learning and contingency degradation) or in response to food-related environmental stimuli (Pavlovian-instrumental transfer). These results may lead to a better understanding of the effect of modern lifestyles on feeding behaviour and metabolic/mental health.

Key publications

Rougeux et al. (in preparation)

The role of dopamine and endocannabinoid systems in prefrontal cortex development: Adolescence as a critical period
Peters and Naneix (2022), Front Neural Circuits

Investigating the Effect of Physiological Need States on Palatability and Motivation Using Microstructural Analysis of Licking
Naneix et al. (2021), Neuropsychopharmacology

Protein Appetite Drives Macronutrient-Related Differences in Ventral Tegmental Area Neural Activity
Chiacchierini*, Naneix  et al. (2021), J Neurosci

Share some pizza with the speaker!

PhD students, you can meet the speaker after the talk.
Please register here before Wednesday January 8th, 1pm:
https://evento.renater.fr/survey/pizza-with-fabien-naneix-january-10th-lnkm8lq5