ArticleCurrent biology : CB2013
Metabolic regulation of brain response to food cues.
Article in Current biology : CB, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT02499757 (Does Sweet Taste Potentiate Nicotine Cue Reactivity?), which is not on this map. Cited by 56 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Does Sweet Taste Potentiate Nicotine Cue Reactivity?
Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed, 108 citations in OpenAlex.
- Metabolic and neural responses to ultraprocessed foods: a randomized, controlled, crossover study.Nature metabolism · 2026Trial
- Diets Varying in Carbohydrate Content Differentially Alter Brain Activity in Homeostatic and Reward Regions in Adults.The Journal of nutrition · 2021Trial
- Neuroimaging of hypothalamic mechanisms related to glucose metabolism in anorexia nervosa and obesity.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2020Trial
- Short-Term Consumption of Sucralose with, but Not without, Carbohydrate Impairs Neural and Metabolic Sensitivity to Sugar in Humans.Cell metabolism · 2020Trial
- Trial
- The critical role of gut-brain signalling in eating behaviour and obesity.Nature reviews. Gastroenterology & hepatology · 2026Review
- When tasty becomes threatening: a neurobehavioral perspective on subjective food preferences in eating disorders.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Metrics of glycemic control but not body weight influence flavor nutrient conditioning in humans.Physiology & behavior · 2025Article
- In defense of pleasure: We need to rethink food reward and obesity.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- An interoceptive model of energy allostasis linking metabolic and mental health.Science advances · 2025Review
- The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2025Review
- Separating Subjective from Objective Food Value in the Human Insula: An Exploratory Study Using Intracranial EEG.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Neural and metabolic factors in carbohydrate reward: Rationale, design, and methods for a flavor-nutrient learning paradigm in humans.Contemporary clinical trials · 2024Article
- Postingestive reward acts through behavioral reinforcement and is conserved in obesity and after bariatric surgery.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Creation and validation of a NOVA scored picture set to evaluate ultra-processed foods.Appetite · 2024Article
- Separate gut-brain circuits for fat and sugar reinforcement combine to promote overeating.Cell metabolism · 2024Article
- Sniffing out meaning: Chemosensory and semantic neural network changes in sommeliers.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- Paediatric obesity and metabolic syndrome associations with cognition and the brain in youth: Current evidence and future directions.Pediatric obesity · 2023Review
- Food reinforcement architecture: A framework for impulsive and compulsive overeating and food abuse.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2023Review
- Obesity impairs brain responses to nutrients.Nature metabolism · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Identification of energy sources depends upon the ability to form associations between food cues and nutritional value. As such, cues previously paired with calories elicit neuronal activation in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), which reflects the reinforcing value of food. The identity of the physiological signals regulating this response remains elusive. Using fMRI, we examined brain response to noncaloric versions of flavors that had been consumed in previous days with either 0 or 112.5 calories from undetected maltodextrin. We report a small but perceptually meaningful increase in liking for the flavor that had been paired with calories and find that change in liking was associated with changes in insular responses to this beverage. In contrast, NAcc and hypothalamic response to the calorie-paired flavor was unrelated to liking but was strongly associated with the changes in plasma glucose levels produced by ingestion of the beverage when consumed previously with calories. Importantly, because each participant ingested the same caloric dose, the change in plasma glucose depended upon individual differences in glucose metabolism. We conclude that glucose metabolism is a critical signal regulating NAcc and hypothalamic response to food cues, and that this process operates independently from the ability of calories to condition liking.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.