The neurobiology of appetite: hunger as addiction.

Obesity is now being recognized as a neurobehavioral disorder. Although the view of appetite as an addiction to food is controversial, there are useful lessons to be learned from the neuroscience of addiction for understanding obesity. The speakers in this symposium all addressed different aspects of the neurobiology of feeding and obesity. In this overview and the associated reviews, the behavioral, genetic and neural factors that promote over-eating in animals and humans are discussed.