ArticleNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2016
Melanocortin 3 Receptor Signaling in Midbrain Dopamine Neurons Increases the Motivation for Food Reward.
Article in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
- Beyond Pleasure: Unraveling the Multifaceted Role of Dopamine in Obesity and Metabolic Regulation.Current obesity reports · 2026Review
- Gut microbiota-driven metabolites modulate the development of stress-related mental disorders.Translational psychiatry · 2026Review
- Dopamine D2 Receptors and Its Downstream Signaling in Compulsive Eating.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- The prevalence and clinical correlates of severe anxiety symptoms in first-episode drug-naïve schizophrenia: a Chinese population study.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Fasting-induced activity changes in MC3R neurons of the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus.Life science alliance · 2024Article
- Experimental biology can inform our understanding of food insecurity.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Chronic Nicotine Consumption and Withdrawal Regulate Melanocortin Receptor, CRF, and CRF Receptor mRNA Levels in the Rat Brain.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Targeting the central melanocortin system for the treatment of metabolic disorders.Nature reviews. Endocrinology · 2023Review
- Neuropeptides Modulate Feeding via the Dopamine Reward Pathway.Neurochemical research · 2023Review
- Overlapping representations of food and social stimuli in VTA dopamine neurons.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- The Melanocortin System: A Promising Target for the Development of New Antidepressant Drugs.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Organization of neural systems expressing melanocortin-3 receptors in the mouse brain: Evidence for sexual dimorphism.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2022Article
- Oxytocin and the social facilitation of placebo effects.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Review
- Actions of feeding-related peptides on the mesolimbic dopamine system in regulation of natural and drug rewards.Addiction neuroscience · 2022Article
- Melanocortin Signaling Connecting Systemic Metabolism With Mood Disorders.Biological psychiatry · 2022Review
- Dopamine Transporter Is a Master Regulator of Dopaminergic Neural Network Connectivity.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021Article
- Oxytocin activation of paraventricular thalamic neurons promotes feeding motivation to attenuate stress-induced hypophagia.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2021Article
- Review
- Maternal high-fat diet during lactation reprograms the dopaminergic circuitry in mice.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2020Article
- Complex patterns of dopamine-related gene expression in the ventral tegmental area of male zebra finches relate to dyadic interactions with long-term female partners.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors at 7 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The central melanocortin (MC) system mediates its effects on food intake via MC3 (MC3R) and MC4 receptors (MC4R). Although the role of MC4R in meal size determination, satiation, food preference, and motivation is well established, the involvement of MC3R in the modulation of food intake has been less explored. Here, we investigated the role of MC3R on the incentive motivation for food, which is a crucial component of feeding behavior. Dopaminergic neurons within the ventral tegmental area (VTA) have a crucial role in the motivation for food. We here report that MC3Rs are expressed on VTA dopaminergic neurons and that pro-opiomelanocortinergic (POMC) neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus (Arc) innervate these VTA dopaminergic neurons. Our findings show that intracerebroventricular or intra-VTA infusion of the selective MC3R agonist γMSH increases responding for sucrose under a progressive ratio schedule of reinforcement, but not free sucrose consumption in rats. Furthermore, ex vivo electrophysiological recordings show increased VTA dopaminergic neuronal activity upon γMSH application. Consistent with a dopamine-mediated effect of γMSH, the increased motivation for sucrose after intra-VTA infusion of γMSH was blocked by pretreatment with the dopamine receptor antagonist α-flupenthixol. Taken together, we demonstrate an Arc POMC projection onto VTA dopaminergic neurons that modulates motivation for palatable food via activation of MC3R signaling.
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.