The Neurobiology of Affective-Endocrine Integration: Proposed Institutional Alliances for Validating the Core Emotion Framework and Its Metabolic Implications on Weight Regulation

This document outlines a proposed multi institutional research program designed to empirically evaluate the Core Emotion Framework’s (CEF) extension into metabolic, neuroendocrine, and weight regulation domains. While the CEF operator taxonomy itself has been preregistered, the weight related hypotheses presented here constitute a new, unregistered theoretical expansion. The model proposes that chronic fusion of the Expanding (Heart) and Accepting (Gut) operators produces a passive coping metabolic phenotype characterized by boundary collapse, HPA axis flattening, visceral adiposity, and Default Mode Network (DMN) hyperconnectivity. Ten leading research institutions are identified for their methodological capacity to test specific components of this model, including neuroimaging, endocrine profiling, brain–gut–microbiome analysis, somatic intervention trials, and computational state space modeling. This document serves as a corrected and consolidated roadmap for future empirical validation, clarifying that all metabolic and weight related claims remain theoretical and unregistered.