“how not to end up with a shopping cart full of Doritos when shopping on an empty stomach?”

Building up motivation – Neural mechanisms underlying the formation of gradual motivation
Motivation is an internal representation of physiological needs that drive goal-directed behaviours, like eating when we’re hungry. Despite their importance for human health, we don’t know how motivational drives develop and accumulate in the brain. Our research aims to test the novel idea that motivation builds up gradually by the accumulation of biochemical entities within circuits that process motivation.