Alice Ely
20th Annual Meeting of the Society for
the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB)
With the assistance I received from the
International Travel Award, I attended
the 20th Annual Meeting of the Society
for the Study of Ingestive Behavior
(SSIB). The meeting aims to bring
together world leaders in the field of
animal and human eating behavior and
provide a program of new and exciting
scientific research. There was a range of
topics covered, from the more basic
biological to translational to behavioral
and nutritional research, and a
considerable effort was made by the program directors to incorporate academic and professional
development opportunities as well.
I attended talks and symposia primarily focusing on human research, but ventured outside of my
research focus to sit in on discussions of animal physiology and behavior as well. I was particularly
interested in the talks concerning the neurobiological correlates of food reward and goal-directed
behavior, both in rats and in humans, as this is most closely related to my own research. I learned quite
a bit about the physiological model of bariatric surgery and the role of mirror neurons in eating behavior
from sponsored lectures by Lee Kaplan from Massachusetts General Hospital and Giacomo Rizzolatti of
the University of Parma, respectively.
I presented my research, entitled “Interaction Of Dieting Status With Reward Response To Palatable
Food Cues: An FMRI Study” as a an oral presentation on reward, reinforcement and food seeking. I
focused on discussing the reward-related brain activity of individuals with either current or past weight
loss dieting as compared to those who have never dieted before, both in a fasted state and following a
meal. Using fMRI technology, I determined that the activation in response to highly palatable food (as
compared to only moderately palatable food) was higher in the fed state than the fasted state for those
who had dieted in the past, suggesting that they might be prone to overeating and therefore future
weight gain. The talk was well received and I fielded a few interesting questions about the data. I was
able to further discuss my findings with other researchers in the field of biobehavioral risk factors for
weight gain, attending multiple poster sessions and a “Meet the Professor” lunch for graduate students.
I was granted an award for my research as a “New Investigator,” further demonstrating the strength of
Drexel sciences to the attendees of the conference. As the only Drexel student at the conference and
was honored to represent the Clinical Psychology doctoral program.