Target Audience

Des Moines University faculty, staff, and students.

Objectives

• Provide knowledge of the neural mechanism of appetite and body weight control.
• Help deliver an understanding of the neural circuit basis for eating disorders.
• Deliver the cutting edge tools in the study of integrative neuroscience and energy metabolism. 

Speaker

Qi Wu, PhD
Pharmacologist, University of Iowa

Dr. Qi Wu is currently an Assistant Professor at Carver College of Medicine of the University of Iowa. Dr. Wu received his biology degree from Nanjing University in 2000, his Ph.D. from University of Georgia in 2005, and completed his PostDoc in 2011 through the University of Washington. In his lab, he is currently studying neural control of feeding behavior and the etiology of eating-associated disorders, ie: obesity, anorexia nervosa, etc. in mice.  He is currently working to characterize functional connectivity of metabolic-sensing PBN neurons and their roles in control of feeding and energy homeostasis, as well as identify a hindbrain neural circuit and associated signaling pathways that mediate feeding and addictive response to food in transgenic mouse models.