ArticleNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2013
An orexin hotspot in ventral pallidum amplifies hedonic 'liking' for sweetness.
Article in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 70 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
70 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 164 citations in OpenAlex.
- Hunger and BMI modulate neural responses to sweet stimuli: fMRI meta-analysis.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2020Pooled it
- Maternal obesity and the embryonic rewiring of feeding circuits: Beyond the hypothalamus.Molecular metabolism · 2026Review
- Ventral Pallidum Cholinergic Neurons Respond to Reward and Signal Reward Value.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Hedonic hotspot in rat olfactory tubercle: map for mu-opioid, orexin, and muscimol enhancement of sucrose 'liking'.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Optogenetic Hedonic Hotspots in the Orbitofrontal Cortex and Insula: Causing Enhancement of Sweetness "Liking".The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Ecologically-Valid Emotion Signatures Enhance Mood Disorder Diagnostics.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Flaxseed Supplementation Confers Resilience to Stress-Induced Depression-Like Behaviors via GDNF Epigenetic Modulation in the Ventral Tegmental Area of Rats.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2026Article
- Hedonic hotspot in rat olfactory tubercle: map for mu-opioid, orexin, and muscimol enhancement of sucrose 'liking'.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Article
- Ventral pallidal GABAergic neurons drive consumption in male, but not female rats.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Genetic and epigenetic studies of opioid abuse disorder - the potential for future diagnostics.Expert review of molecular diagnostics · 2023Review
- Use of experimental medicine approaches for the development of novel psychiatric treatments based on orexin receptor modulation.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Ventral pallidal regulation of motivated behaviors and reinforcement.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2023Review
- Ventral pallidum GABA neurons bidirectionally control opioid relapse across rat behavioral models.Addiction neuroscience · 2022Article
- Neurobiology of the Orexin System and Its Potential Role in the Regulation of Hedonic Tone.Brain sciences · 2022Review
- New directions in modelling dysregulated reward seeking for food and drugs.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2022Review
- Sex Differences in Demand for Highly Palatable Foods: Role of the Orexin System.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2021Article
- Ventral pallidum neurons dynamically signal relative threat.Communications biology · 2021Article
- Pleasure, addiction, and hypocretin (orexin).Handbook of clinical neurology · 2021Review
- Using pharmacological manipulations to study the role of dopamine in human reward functioning: A review of studies in healthy adults.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Review
10 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Orexin (hypocretin) is implicated in stimulating appetite as well as arousal, and in both food reward and drug reward. The ventral pallidum (VP) receives orexin projections from lateral hypothalamus neurons (LH), and orexin terminals are especially dense in the posterior half of VP, which is also the location of an opioid hedonic hotspot. The VP hotspot is a roughly cubic-millimeter site where mu opioid stimulation can amplify the hedonic impact of sweetness, expressed as an increase in 'liking' reactions to sucrose taste. The anatomical overlap in posterior VP between opioid hotspot and orexin inputs raises the possibility that the hedonic hotspot might allow orexin to amplify 'liking' too. We examined whether microinjections of orexin-A into the VP hotspot enhance the hedonic impact of sucrose, as assessed via affective taste reactivity measures of 'liking' reactions, and additionally compared effects at nearby sites in adjacent LH and extended amygdala. Taste reactivity results indicated that orexin stimulation specifically in the VP hotspot nearly doubled the magnitude of positive 'liking' reactions elicited by the taste of sucrose. Mapping results for localization of function, aided by Fos plume measures of the local spread of orexin impact, suggested that hedonic enhancement was generated by essentially the same cubic-millimeter of posterior VP previously identified as the opioid hotspot. By contrast, microinjection sites in the anterior half of VP, or in LH or extended amygdala, generally failed to produce any hedonic enhancement. We conclude that an orexin hedonic hotspot exists in posterior VP, with similar boundaries to the opioid hotspot. An orexin hedonic hotspot may permit regulatory hypothalamic circuitry to make foods more 'liked' during hunger by acting through VP. Dysfunction in a VP orexin hotspot in addiction or mood disorders might also contribute to some types of affective psychopathology.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.