Projects per year
Personal profile
Research interests
For the past 25 years, Dr. Andras Hajnal's research has focused on the neural mechanisms of appetitive behaviors, such as hedonic eating, substance use and addiction. Specific areas of his research have investigated how diet-induced obesity produces changes in the brain’s taste and reward systems to perpetuate over-eating and the role of gut-brain factors in regulating reward-guided behaviors.
Dr. Hajnal's early work was the first to demonstrate that sweet taste is sufficient to stimulate dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. Dr. Hajnal’s work has also documented that reward elicited by sweet tastes is relayed through the parabrachial pontine nucleus to the forebrain and development of obesity impairs gustatory processing in the hindbrain.
Recently, as part of a collaboration with bariatric surgeons and NIH scientists at NIAAA and NIDA, Dr. Hajnal has developed animal models of various bariatric surgeries for studying the beneficial and adverse effects of gastrointestinal manipulations on alcohol and opioid self-administration. The idea of using bariatric surgical animal models as a preclinical research tool to study neuro-hormonal mechanisms of addiction is novel and based on the premise that understanding what causes the switch in patients post-surgery moving away from food cravings and food addiction to develop alcohol and substance (primarily opioid) use disorder (a.k.a. ‘addiction-transfer’) could help with identifying mechanisms and targets in the brain that could be exploited in developing novel pharmacological targets to combat addiction.
A second area of research, currently funded by a Department of Defense Grant, is aimed at better understanding the mechanisms of gastrointestinal neuropeptide signaling in an animal model of spinal cord injury following weight loss surgery.
Fingerprint
- 10 Similar Profiles
Network
Projects
- 4 Finished
-
Increased vulnerability to alcohol abuse after gastric bypass: Neural mechanisms
Hajnal, A. & Thanos, P.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
2/5/16 → 1/31/19
Project: Research project
-
Gastric bypass surgery alters the regulation of food reward
Hajnal, A., HAJNAL, A. & HAJNAL, A.
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DIABETES AND DIGESTIVE AND KIDNEY DISEASES
4/1/09 → 3/31/14
Project: Research project
-
Dopamine mechanisms in development of type-2 diabetes
Hajnal, A., HAJNAL, A. & HAJNAL, A.
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DIABETES AND DIGESTIVE AND KIDNEY DISEASES
1/1/04 → 12/31/09
Project: Research project
-
GUSTATORY REWARD AND DOPAMINE IN THE NUCLEUS ACCUMBENS
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
1/1/01 → 12/31/03
Project: Research project
Research Output
-
Consumption of a high energy density diet triggers microbiota dysbiosis, hepatic lipidosis, and microglia activation in the nucleus of the solitary tract in rats
Minaya, D. M., Turlej, A., Joshi, A., Nagy, T., Weinstein, N., DiLorenzo, P., Hajnal, A. & Czaja, K., Dec 1 2020, In: Nutrition and Diabetes. 10, 1, 20.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access1 Scopus citations -
Differential effects of maternal high fat diet during pregnancy and lactation on taste preferences in rats
Mezei, G. C., Ural, S. H. & Hajnal, A., Nov 2020, In: Nutrients. 12, 11, p. 1-13 13 p., 3553.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
Prolonged functional cerebral asymmetry as a consequence of dysfunctional parvocellular paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus signaling: An integrative model for the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder
Levenberg, K., Hajnal, A., George, D. R. & Saunders, E. F. H., 2020, (Accepted/In press) In: Medical Hypotheses. 110433.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
-
Roux-en-Y gastric bypass increases GABA-A receptor levels in regions of the rat brain involved in object recognition memory and perceptual acuity
McGregor, M., Hamilton, J., Hajnal, A. & Thanos, P. K., Oct 1 2020, In: Physiology and Behavior. 224, 113053.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
-
Neuro-hormonal mechanisms underlying changes in reward related behaviors following weight loss surgery: Potential pharmacological targets
Orellana, E. R., Covasa, M. & Hajnal, A., Jun 1 2019, In: Biochemical Pharmacology. 164, p. 106-114 9 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
1 Scopus citations