11th Annual Canadian Neurometabolic Meeting

Dr. Karolina Skibicka is a Professor and Canada Research Chair Tier 1 in Neurocircuitry of Interoception at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Canada. She previously served as an Associate Professor and Metabolic Physiology Chair in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Penn State University, USA and a Professor of Molecular Medicine at the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Dr Skibicka earned her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania, Pearlman School of Medicine and her postdoctoral training in Neuroendocrinology at the Sahlgrenska Academy, Sweden. 

Her research approach utilizes rat models and applies a wide variety of behavioral neuroscience methodologies and levels of analysis, including behavioral, neuroanatomical, molecular, neuropharmacological, and opto and chemogenetic to investigate the neural basis of gut-brain communication. 

Discoveries which have contributed to Dr Skibicka’s status as a key opinion leader in her field, include original findings of novel impact of gut-brain communication, partly via the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), on food and alcohol motivated behavior and central dopamine circuits, as well as emotionality behavior, including anxiety and depression-like behavior and the central serotonin system.  GLP-1 analogues, a recently approved treatment for obesity, are now widely recognized to reduce food cravings - these mechanisms were originally described by Dr Skibicka's research. Core thread in her research is inclusion and analysis of female subjects and paying particular attention to the influence of sex and sex steroids on the gut-brain communication neurocircuits. 

She published over 80 scientific articles including in top tier scientific journals and is consistently highly cited. She has been continuously funded by external grants since opening her lab in 2011 including by the Swedish Research Council, NIH, Wallenberg and Soderberg Foundations.  She also engages with popular media including The Atlantic, New York Times, New York Magazine, Huffington Post, PBS, VICE, Wired, la Repubblica, Goteborgs Posten, Dagens Nyheter, Swedish Television ch 1, Nature and more.

Dr. Morys is a Research Associate at the Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University. He obtained his master’s degree in medical neurosciences from the Charité - Medical University Berlin and the Humboldt University, and a PhD in neuroscience from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the University of Leipzig, where he worked on functional brain correlates of decision-making in obesity. Filip’s research at the Montreal Neurological Institute involves the use of big data to investigate neural, genetic, behavioural, and environmental causes underlying excess weight gain and metabolic changes in humans as well as negative consequences of obesity on the brain.

Dr. Décarie-Spain obtained her BSc in nutritional sciences from the University of Ottawa and a PhD in neurological sciences from the University of Montreal. She then pursued postdoctoral training at the University of Southern California. As of 2026, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition at the University of Montreal and principal investigator at the Centre de recherche du CHUM. Her lab investigates the interactions between cognitive processes and eating behaviours.