ArticleInternational journal of obesity (2005)2015
Modulation of cue-induced firing of ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons by leptin and ghrelin.
Article in International journal of obesity (2005), 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 77 citations in OpenAlex.
- When does post-ingestive dopamine signaling occur in humans?bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Beyond Pleasure: Unraveling the Multifaceted Role of Dopamine in Obesity and Metabolic Regulation.Current obesity reports · 2026Review
- Nucleus of the solitary tract regulation of cue-induced appetitive behaviors via midbrain dopamine neurons.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Bifidobacterium longum and prebiotic interventions restore early-life high-fat/high-sugar diet-induced alterations in feeding behavior in adult mice.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Dopamine neuron activity evoked by sucrose and sucrose-predictive cues is augmented by peripheral and central manipulations of glucose availability.The European journal of neuroscience · 2024Article
- Experimental biology can inform our understanding of food insecurity.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- To eat or not to eat: A role for ghrelin and LEAP2 in eating disorders?Neuroscience applied · 2024Review
- Article
- Metabolic hormone action in the VTA: Reward-directed behavior and mechanistic insights.Physiology & behavior · 2023Review
- Food reinforcement architecture: A framework for impulsive and compulsive overeating and food abuse.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2023Review
- Overlapping representations of food and social stimuli in VTA dopamine neurons.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Obesogenic Diet-Induced Neuroinflammation: A Pathological Link between Hedonic and Homeostatic Control of Food Intake.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Leptin Protects Against the Development and Expression of Cocaine Addiction-Like Behavior in Heterogeneous Stock Rats.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Fluid intake, what's dopamine got to do with it?Physiology & behavior · 2021Article
- Review
- Zona incerta neurons projecting to the ventral tegmental area promote action initiation towards feeding.The Journal of physiology · 2021Article
- Leptin Receptor Expressing Neurons in the Substantia Nigra Regulate Locomotion, and in The Ventral Tegmental Area Motivation and Feeding.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2021Article
- A role for adaptive developmental plasticity in learning and decision making.Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2020Article
- Modeling the effects of motivation on choice and learning in the basal ganglia.PLoS computational biology · 2020Article
- Phasic dopamine responses to a food-predictive cue are suppressed by the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist Exendin-4.Physiology & behavior · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND/
objectivesThe rewarding value of palatable foods contributes to overconsumption, even in satiated subjects. Midbrain dopaminergic activity in response to reward-predicting environmental stimuli drives reward-seeking and motivated behavior for food rewards. This mesolimbic dopamine (DA) system is sensitive to changes in energy balance, yet it has thus far not been established whether reward signaling of DA neurons in vivo is under control of hormones that signal appetite and energy balance such as ghrelin and leptin. SUBJECTS/
methodsWe trained rats (n=11) on an operant task in which they could earn two different food rewards. We then implanted recording electrodes in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), and recorded from DA neurons during behavior. Subsequently, we assessed the effects of mild food restriction and pretreatment with the adipose tissue-derived anorexigenic hormone leptin or the orexigenic hormone ghrelin on VTA DA reward signaling.
resultsAnimals showed an increase in performance following mild food restriction (P=0.002). Importantly, food-cue induced DA firing increased when animals were food restricted (P=0.02), but was significantly attenuated after leptin pretreatment (P=0.00). While ghrelin did affect baseline DA activity (P=0.025), it did not affect cue-induced firing (P⩾0.353).
conclusionsMetabolic signals, such as leptin, affect food seeking, a process that is dependent on the formation of cue-reward outcomes and involves midbrain DA signaling. These data show that food restriction engages the encoding of food cues by VTA DA neurons at a millisecond level and leptin suppresses this activity. This suggests that leptin is a key in linking metabolic information to reward signaling.
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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.