Exposure to food-associated sensory cues during development program central response to food and obesity
Maternal obesity predisposes offspring to metabolic diseases. Insulin resistance and adiposity secondary to maternal calorie-rich high-fat diet consumption are considered key contributors to such developmental programming. Here, we show that non-nutritive sensory components of high-fat diet (HFD), beyond its hypercaloric, obesogenic effects, are sufficient to alter metabolic health in the offspring. To dissociate the caloric and sensory components of HFD, we fed dams a diet isonutritional to a normal chow diet but enriched with fat-related odors mimicking the sensory signature of a commonly us