Dana Small, PhD
Professor Adjunct of PsychiatryCards
About
Titles
Professor Adjunct of Psychiatry
Director, Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center
Biography
I am a psychologist and neuroscientist with graduate degrees in Neuroscience and Clinical Psychology from McGill University. My research focuses on understanding how sensory, metabolic and neural signals are integrated to determine food choices and on how the dysregulation of these systems contribute to the development of obesity, diabetes and cognitive impairment. My group primarily uses neuroimaging, neuropsychological and metabolic methodologies in humans; however, we also have collaborations with a number of basic research labs at Yale and abroad where we use a revere translational approach to pursue mechanistic questions in rodent models that arise from findings in humans. My laboratory generally consists of 1-2 phd students; 3-4 post-docs; a research associate professor and a handful of international interns and Yale undergraduates. I have trained 5 PhD students, 12 post-doctoral fellows and over 40 undergraduates and medical students. The lab has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 2003.
In addition to my activities at Yale, I am also involved in a number of initiatives related to advancing knowledge and treatment of diabetes and obesity. I am co-leading a National Institutes of Health workgroup developing a neuropsychological battery for use in obesity and diabetes trials and chairing the annual meeting for the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior. I am executive editor at Appetite and Biological Psychiatry and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Behavior, Cognitive and Sensory Sciences.
Appointments
Psychiatry
Professor AdjunctPrimary
Other Departments & Organizations
- Center for Nicotine and Tobacco Use Research at Yale (CENTURY)
- Connecticut Mental Health Center
- Diabetes Research Center
- MR Center
- Neuroscience Track
- Obesity Research Working Group
- Psychiatry
- Small Lab
- Stress & Addiction Clinical Research Program
- Yale Combined Program in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS)
- Yale Stress Center
- Yale Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science
- Yale Ventures
Education & Training
- PhD
- McGill University (2001)
- MSc
- McGill University (1998)
Research
Overview
- The role of central insulin sensitivity on cognition in prediabetes
- Central coding of taste and flavor.
- Physiological mechanisms underlying food choice and ingestive behavior
- The impact of diet, adiposity and metabolic dysfunction on brain structure and function, including mood, cognition and addiction.
- Targeting the gut-brain axis for weight-loss maintenance
- Determining the role of the gut-brain axis in alcohol dependence
- Understanding the mechanisms underlying dopamine adaptations in response to diet, adiposity and metabolic dysfunction.
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Academic Achievements and Community Involvement
Links & Media
Media
- Subliminal reward signals (blue pathway) are generated during nutrient metabolism in the gut and are conveyed to the hindbrain, midbrain, and striatum. Taste and oral somatosensation and retronasal olfaction (red pathways) travel through cranial nerves 5, 7, 9, and 10 to the sensory cortex and are integrated into flavor objects in the insula. Sensory information from the high road and subliminal reward signals from the low road converge in the insula, and higher-order cortical areas (purple areas) exert additional influences upon perception to govern food choice. (de Araujo IE, Schatzker M, Small DM. Rethinking Food Reward. Annual Review Of Psychology 2020, 71:139-164.)
News
- March 22, 2023
Study: Daily Consumption of a High-Fat, High-Sugar Snack Alters Reward Circuits in Brain
- November 02, 2021
Small to Present Keynote Lecture at Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting
- June 30, 2021
Small Elected President of Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior
- May 27, 2021Source: PBS
The Science of Taste