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Nutritional Chemistry Lab
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A lab that explores the mechanisms of memory and feeding behavior through the relationship between the brain and food.
AboutAbout the lab
Toward food that improves brain performance.
The Nutritional Chemistry Lab studies brain nutrition, a field that focuses on the brain, nutrition, and food.
The lab investigates how memories of food regulate eating behavior and how memories are controlled in the brain.
It uses a variety of methods, including behavioral analysis and imaging in mice, biochemistry, and molecular biology.
The lab is also working on developing treatments for psychiatric disorders, including PTSD.
Key terms
- Brain nutrition
- A field that combines nutritional chemistry and neuroscience to study how nutrients and foods affect brain function
- Engram
- A group of neurons that store a memory. Also called memory-storing cells
- Reconsolidation
- The process by which a memory that has become unstable after being recalled is stored in the brain again in a stable form
- PTSD
- Post-traumatic stress disorder. A psychiatric disorder caused by the memory of an experience of intense fear
NewsLab news
Mice found to adjust their eating according to whether they like or dislike the food they will eat next
Student wins Topics Award at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Agrochemistry
Molecular mechanism underlying the cause of PTSD elucidated
ResearchResearch themes
The lab conducts research in brain nutrition, focusing on the brain, nutrition, and food. It aims to uncover how memories of food regulate feeding behavior and how memories are controlled, and to develop treatments for brain diseases, including psychiatric disorders.
*Illustrative imageNutrients and Brain Function
The lab investigates how nutrients such as vitamins and food components affect brain function. It has also found that nutrient deficiency causes inflammation in the brain and leads to memory impairment.
*Illustrative imageFood Preferences and Memory
Likes and dislikes for food are determined by memories of past eating experiences, and they change over time. The lab studies the underlying mechanisms from the perspective of the engram that stores food memories, and aims to develop methods to improve eating habits.
*Illustrative imageHow Memories Are Maintained and Recalled
The lab investigates how memories are stored for a long time, and how recalled memories are reconsolidated or extinguished. It has also clarified the relationship between the circadian clock and the ability to recall memories.
*Illustrative imageToward Treatments for PTSD
The lab works to elucidate how PTSD, which is caused by memories of fear, develops and to develop treatments for it. It has proposed that promoting the forgetting of memories can help improve PTSD.
MembersFaculty
The lab's members consist of faculty, specialist academic staff, and doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- ProfessorSatoshi KidaPublications ↗
- Assistant ProfessorRie IshikawaPublications ↗
VoicesStudent voices
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Cultured Rat Hippocampal Neuron ( )” ZEISS Microscopy from Germany / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Nutrients and Brain Function: “Carrots of many colors” Stephen Ausmus / Public domain (cropped)
- Food Preferences and Memory: “White lab mouse in open nest” Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- How Memories Are Maintained and Recalled: “Hippocampal Neurons, stained” Ns takes photos / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Toward Treatments for PTSD: “Mutually exclusive PSA-NCAM and Calbindin expression in the dentate gyrus ( )” Jason Snyder from Washington, DC, United States / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Hisatsune Lab): “Ιππόκαμπος ποντικού” Archontia Kaminari / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Food Chemistry Lab (Arai Lab)): “Macrophage ( )” NIAID / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Nutrition and Life Sciences Lab): “Human iPS cells colonies” Christine Hale, Amy Yeung, David Goulding, Derek Pickard, Kaur Alasoo, Fiona Powrie, Gordon Dougan ほか
（PLOS ONE） / CC BY 4.0 (cropped) - Related lab (Food Biochemistry Lab): “Bodipy-wiki-Rkott-2023” Rkott / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
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