Kevin Myers

Director of the Neuroscience Program

Educational Background

• B.S., magna cum laude, University of Scranton, 1993
• M.A., Duke University, 1997
• Ph.D., Duke University, 1999
• NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, Brooklyn College of CUNY, 1999-2001

Research Interests

I am broadly interested in animal learning and motivation, especially the psychological experiences of pleasure and reward and their functions in Pavlovian conditioning. My research is primarily focused on appetite, such as the factors that make certain foods rewarding or desirable, and the role of "pleasure" in guiding food selection and intake. Much of this work involves studying the ways that animals learn to prefer or avoid certain foods based on experience with their positive or negative consequences. I am also interested in the early development of appetite controls, food selection, and learning processes in infancy.

Courses Taught

• Introductory Psychology
• Learning
• Research Methods in Learning
• Appetite and Eating Behavior
• Biopsychology of Appetite and Obesity

Selected Publications

Myers, K.P. (2017). The convergence of psychology and neurobiology in flavor-nutrient learning. Appetite. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2017.03.048

Myers, K.P. (2017). Sensory-specific satiety is intact in rats made obese on a high-fat, high-sugar choice diet. Appetite. doi:0.1016/j.appet.2017.01.013

Nentwig, T.B., Myers, K.P., & Grisel, J.E. (2017). Initial subjective reward to alcohol in Sprague-Dawley rats. Alcohol, 58, 19-22.

Palframan, K. M., & Myers, K. P. (2016). Modern ‘junk food'and minimally-processed ‘natural food' cafeteria diets alter the response to sweet taste but do not impair flavor-nutrient learning in rats. Physiology & Behavior, 157, 146-157.

Wald, H. S., & Myers, K. P. (2015). Enhanced flavor-nutrient conditioning in obese rats on a high-fat, high-carbohydrate choice diet. Physiology & Behavior, 151, 102-110.

Brunstrom, J. M., Rogers, P. J., Myers, K. P., & Holtzman, J. D. (2015). In search of flavour-nutrient learning. A study of the Samburu pastoralists of North-Central Kenya. Appetite, 91, 415-425.

Myers, K. P., Taddeo, M. S., & Richards, E. K. (2013). Sensory-specific appetition: Postingestive detection of glucose rapidly promotes continued consumption of a recently encountered flavor. Physiology & Behavior, 121, 125-133.

Myers, K. P. (2013). Rats acquire stronger preference for flavors consumed towards the end of a high-fat meal. Physiology & Behavior, 110, 179-189.

Vento, P. J., Myers, K. P., & Daniels, D. (2012). Investigation into the specificity of angiotensin II-induced behavioral desensitization. Physiology & Behavior, 105(4), 1076-1081.

Myers, K. P., & Whitney, M. C. (2011). Rats' learned preferences for flavors encountered early or late in a meal paired with the postingestive effects of glucose. Physiology & Behavior, 102(5), 466-474.

Myers, K.P. (2007). Robust preference for a flavor paired with intragastric glucose acquired in a single trial. Appetite, 48, 123-127.

Myers, K.P. & Izbicki, E.V. (2006). Reinforcing and aversive effects of caffeine measured by flavor preference conditioning in caffeine-naive and caffeine-acclimated rats. Physiology & Behavior, 88, 585-596.

Myers, K.P. & Sclafani, A. (2006). Development of learned flavor preferences. Developmental Psychobiology, 48, 380-388.

Myers, K.P., Ferris, J., & Sclafani, A. (2005). Flavor preferences conditioned by postingestive effects of nutrients in preweanling rats. Physiology and Behavior, 84, 407-19.