Contact
Biography
Sally has more than 20 years of experience conducting research related to understanding the brain perception to food and the physiological mechanisms underlying eating behaviour and the interactions between food, gut, and brain in healthy and clinical populations using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a key research tool. In 2009, she obtained her PhD at the Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre (SPMIC), University of Nottingham in a multi-disciplinary project bridging MR Imaging techniques with food sciences. During this time, she developed MR imaging techniques and analysis methods to explore taste, flavour and oral fat perception in humans, as well as investigating the effect of taste phenotype on cortical response to fat perception. Following her PhD, she worked as an Assistant Professor of Physics in Egypt for four years. In 2014, she re-joined the SPMIC as post-doctorate fellow to investigate the central mechanism of thermal taste status, using multimodal neuroimaging techniques. In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious Anne McLaren reserach fellowship to develop an understanding of mouth-brain-gut interactions to fat intake to tackle obesity, using novel MR imaging techniques. In 2021, she was appointed as an Assistant Professor in Nutritional Neuroimaging at the School of Biosciences.
Expertise Summary
Sally has a long-standing research line focusing on the interplay between sensory stimulation, brain responses and individual factors such as hunger state, appetite-related hormones, taste phenotype, and weight status. Sally's research expertise includes
- Satiety and appetite through exploring the interactions between brain and gut (gut-brain axis)
- Alterations in the gut-brain axis in clinical populations including type 2 diabetes, obesity, and people with altered eating behaviour (e.g IBS, and IBD)
- The brain's perception to food stimuli (taste, texture, aroma, visual) and their multi-modal interaction
- The effect of taste phenotype and genotype on food perception, preference and choice.
Teaching Summary
Sally has completed her Postgraduate Certificate in High Education (PGCHE) and has achieved the status of Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA) in 2022.
Sally is teaching in the following modules:
- Nutrition and Physiology Interactions/ Nutritional Regulation, Physiology and Endocrinology (BIOS2091)
- Nutrition, Metabolism and Diseases (BIOS2036)
- Trent in Food and Nutrition Research (BIOS3048)
- Nutrition and Metabolism (BIOS4068)
- Food Flavour (BIOS4007)
She is the module convenor of the following modules:
- Nutrition, Metabolism and Diseases (BIOS2036)
- Nutrition and Metabolism (BIOS4068).
- Trent in Food and Nutrition Research (BIOS3048), shared with David Gray.
Research Summary
My research expertise and interests are to understand the neural and physiological mechanisms underlying eating behaviour and the interactions between food, gut, and brain in healthy and clinical… read more
Selected Publications
ELDEGHAIDY, S, MARCIANI, L, HORT, J, HOLLOWOOD, T, SINGH, G, BUSH, D, FOSTER, T, TAYLOR, AJ, BUSCH, J, SPILLER, RC, GOWLAND, PA and FRANCIS, ST, 2016. Prior Consumption of a Fat Meal in Healthy Adults Modulates the Brain's Response to Fat JOURNAL OF NUTRITION. 146(11), 2187-2198 HORT J, FORD RA, ELDEGHAIDY S and FRANCIS ST, 2016. Thermal taster status: Evidence of cross-modal integration. Human brain mapping. 37(6), 2263-75 ELDEGHAIDY, S, HOLLOWOOD, T, MARCIANI, L, HEAD, K, BUSCH, J, TAYLOR, AJ, FOSTER, TJ, SPILLER, RC, GOWLAND, PA, FRANCIS, S and HORT, J, 2012. Does fat alter the cortical response to flavor? Chemosensory Perception. 5(3-4), 215-230
Current Research
My research expertise and interests are to understand the neural and physiological mechanisms underlying eating behaviour and the interactions between food, gut, and brain in healthy and clinical populations using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a key research tool. I have a long-standing research line focusing on the interplay between sensory stimulation, brain responses and individual factors such as hunger state, appetite-related hormones, taste phenotype, and weight status. My current research includes:
- Identifying the mechanisms of gut-brain axis to sweet sensing in patients with Type 2 diabetes using Neuroimaging
- Developing novel MR imaging techniques to combine brain and gut imaging in a single MRI scan session to understand the physiological mechanism (brain-gut axis) of appetite and satiety in normal weight and obese participants.
- Developing advanced MRI methods to investigate protein digestion in humans and the interaction between brain and gut to protein digestion
- Investigating the relationship between gut permeability and brain permeability in Crohn's patients