How the Brain's Reward System Responds to Food and Drugs
To some, a chocolate cake may spark a shot of pleasure typically associated with illicit drugs. A new study by Penn biologists offers some insights into that link, revealing new information about how the brain responds to rewards such as food and drugs. A Penn team found a connection between consuming food, certain drugs, and alcohol, and the interconnection of hunger and reward neurons. (Image: Amber Alhadeff) In the work, which appears this week online in the journal Neuron, a team led by Assistant Professor J. Nicholas Betley, postdoctoral researcher Amber L. Alhadeff, and graduate student Nitsan Goldstein of the School of Arts and Sciences shows that, in mice, consuming food turns down the activity of neurons that signal hunger in the brain via a different pathway than alcohol and drugs, which can likewise act as appetite suppressants. Yet the research also reveals that the circuits that trigger the pleasurable release of dopamine are interconnected with the activity of hunger neur...