Brain on fire: Incentive salience, hedonic hot spots, dopamine, obesity, and other hunger games

Jameason D Cameron, Jean-Philippe Chaput, Anders Mikael Sjödin, Gary S Goldfield

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This review examines human feeding behavior in light of psychological motivational theory and highlights the importance of midbrain dopamine (DA). Prospective evidence of both reward surfeit and reward deficit pathways to increased body weight are evaluated, and we argue that it is more complex than an eitheror scenario when examining DA's role in reward sensitivity, eating, and obesity. The Taq1A genotype is a common thread that ties the contrasting models of DA reward and obesity; this genotype related to striatal DA is not associated with obesity class per se but may nevertheless confer an increased risk of weight gain. We also critically examine the concept of so-called food addiction, and despite growing evidence, we argue that there is currently insufficient human data to warrant this diagnostic label. The surgical and pharmacological treatments of obesity are discussed, and evidence is presented for the selective use of DA-class drugs in obesity treatment.

Original languageEnglish
JournalAnnual Review of Nutrition
Volume37
Pages (from-to)183-205
Number of pages23
ISSN0199-9885
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Aug 2017

Keywords

  • Energy intake
  • Food reward
  • Food addiction
  • BMI
  • fMRI
  • Obesity surgery
  • Liking

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