ArticleeLife2018
Hedonic processing in humans is mediated by an opioidergic mechanism in a mesocorticolimbic system.
Article in eLife, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
34 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 97 citations in OpenAlex.
- Endogenous mu-opioid modulation of social connection in humans: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Translational psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Great Expectations: A Critical Review of and Suggestions for the Study of Reward Processing as a Cause and Predictor of Depression.Biological psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- Seeing the bigger picture: endogenous opioids mediate attentional broadening after reward receipt.Psychological medicine · 2025Trial
- Opioidergic modulation of monetary incentive delay fMRI responses.Psychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Effects of dopamine and opioid receptor antagonism on the neural processing of social and nonsocial rewards.Human brain mapping · 2024Trial
- Opioid-blunted cortisol response to stress is associated with increased negative mood and wanting of social reward.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Trial
- Trial
- μ Opioid Antagonist Naltrexone Partially Abolishes the Antidepressant Placebo Effect and Reduces Orbitofrontal Cortex Encoding of Reinforcement.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2021Trial
- Effects of opioid receptor stimulation and blockade on touch pleasantness: a double-blind randomised trial.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2019Trial
- Blunted Ventral Striatal Reactivity to Social Reward Is Associated with More Severe Motivation and Pleasure Deficits in Psychosis.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Article
- Pleasurable music activates cerebral µ-opioid receptors: a combined PET-fMRI study.European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging · 2025Article
- Opioid Regulation of Social Homeostasis: Connecting Loneliness to Addiction.Biological psychiatry · 2025Review
- Differential methylation of OPRK1 in borderline personality disorder is associated with childhood trauma.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Blunted ventral striatal reactivity to social reward is associated with more severe motivation and pleasure deficits in psychosis.Research square · 2024Article
- Article
- Sex dependence of opioid-mediated responses to subanesthetic ketamine in rats.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Distinct cholinergic circuits underlie discrete effects of reward on attention.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2024Review
- TheFrontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Translational models of stress and resilience: An applied neuroscience methodology review.Neuroscience applied · 2024Review
- Negative emotion reduces the discriminability of reward outcomes in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 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
3 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
It has been hypothesized that the pleasure of a reward in humans is mediated by an opioidergic system involving the hypothalamus, nucleus accumbens and the amygdala. Importantly, enjoying the pleasure of a reward is distinct from incentive salience induced by cues predicting the reward. We investigated this issue using a within subject, pharmacological challenge design with the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone and fMRI. Our data show that blocking opioid receptors reduced pleasure associated with viewing erotic pictures more than viewing symbols of reward such as money. This was paralleled by a reduction of activation in the ventral striatum, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, hypothalamus and medial prefrontal cortex. Crucially, the naloxone induced activation decrease was observed at reward delivery, but not during reward anticipation, indicating that blocking opioid receptors decreases the pleasure of rewards in humans. Editorial note: This article has been through an editorial process in which the authors decide how to respond to the issues raised during peer review. The Reviewing Editor's assessment is that all the issues have been addressed (see decision letter).
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.