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Endogenous opioids in the nucleus accumbens promote approach to high-fat food in the absence of caloric need

When relatively sated, people (and rodents) are still easily tempted to consume calorie-dense foods, particularly those containing fat and sugar. Consumption of such foods while calorically replete likely contributes to obesity. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) opioid system has long been viewed as a cri...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Caref, Kevin, Nicola, Saleem M
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5903865/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29582754
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.34955
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author Caref, Kevin
Nicola, Saleem M
author_facet Caref, Kevin
Nicola, Saleem M
author_sort Caref, Kevin
collection PubMed
description When relatively sated, people (and rodents) are still easily tempted to consume calorie-dense foods, particularly those containing fat and sugar. Consumption of such foods while calorically replete likely contributes to obesity. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) opioid system has long been viewed as a critical substrate for this behavior, mainly via contributions to the neural control of consumption and palatability. Here, we test the hypothesis that endogenous NAc opioids also promote appetitive approach to calorie-dense food in states of relatively high satiety. We simultaneously recorded NAc neuronal firing and infused a µ-opioid receptor antagonist into the NAc while rats performed a cued approach task in which appetitive and consummatory phases were well separated. The results reveal elements of a neural mechanism by which NAc opioids promote approach to high-fat food despite the lack of caloric need, demonstrating a potential means by which the brain is biased towards overconsumption of palatable food.
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spelling pubmed-59038652018-04-18 Endogenous opioids in the nucleus accumbens promote approach to high-fat food in the absence of caloric need Caref, Kevin Nicola, Saleem M eLife Neuroscience When relatively sated, people (and rodents) are still easily tempted to consume calorie-dense foods, particularly those containing fat and sugar. Consumption of such foods while calorically replete likely contributes to obesity. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) opioid system has long been viewed as a critical substrate for this behavior, mainly via contributions to the neural control of consumption and palatability. Here, we test the hypothesis that endogenous NAc opioids also promote appetitive approach to calorie-dense food in states of relatively high satiety. We simultaneously recorded NAc neuronal firing and infused a µ-opioid receptor antagonist into the NAc while rats performed a cued approach task in which appetitive and consummatory phases were well separated. The results reveal elements of a neural mechanism by which NAc opioids promote approach to high-fat food despite the lack of caloric need, demonstrating a potential means by which the brain is biased towards overconsumption of palatable food. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2018-03-27 /pmc/articles/PMC5903865/ /pubmed/29582754 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.34955 Text en © 2018, Caref et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Caref, Kevin
Nicola, Saleem M
Endogenous opioids in the nucleus accumbens promote approach to high-fat food in the absence of caloric need
title Endogenous opioids in the nucleus accumbens promote approach to high-fat food in the absence of caloric need
title_full Endogenous opioids in the nucleus accumbens promote approach to high-fat food in the absence of caloric need
title_fullStr Endogenous opioids in the nucleus accumbens promote approach to high-fat food in the absence of caloric need
title_full_unstemmed Endogenous opioids in the nucleus accumbens promote approach to high-fat food in the absence of caloric need
title_short Endogenous opioids in the nucleus accumbens promote approach to high-fat food in the absence of caloric need
title_sort endogenous opioids in the nucleus accumbens promote approach to high-fat food in the absence of caloric need
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5903865/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29582754
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.34955
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