The progress of a meal is controlled by sensory feedback from the gut that is generated during eating. These sensory signals are transmitted by vagal afferents to the caudal brainstem, but how they are integrated in the brainstem to determine when a meal should end is unknown. A major challenge has been the inability to perform neural recordings in the caudal brainstem of awake, behaving animals. I will describe our work developing methods for brainstem recordings in behaving mice, and what these recordings have taught us about the signals that control food intake.