ReviewPhysiology & behavior2020
'Liking' and 'wanting' in eating and food reward: Brain mechanisms and clinical implications.
Review in Physiology & behavior, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 154 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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
154 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Hyperphagia in rare melanocortin-4 receptor pathway diseases: therapeutic options and assessing treatment response.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2025Pooled it
- Economic value in the Brain: A meta-analysis of willingness-to-pay using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction.PloS one · 2023Pooled it
- Trial
- The pill you don't have to take that is still effective: neural correlates of imaginary placebo intake for regulating disgust.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Trial
- How Attention Changes in Response to Carbohydrate Mouth Rinsing.Nutrients · 2023Trial
- Reduction in sugar drink valuation and consumption with gamified executive control training.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Correcting the reward imbalance in binge eating: A pilot randomized trial of reward re-training treatment.Appetite · 2022Trial
- Weight Suppression, Brain Reward Response to Food Cues, and Bulimic Behaviours: A Pilot fMRI Study.European eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association · 2026Article
- Genetic Variants Influencing Taste Perception and Food Preferences: Current Evidence.Nutrients · 2026Review
- The Endogenous Opioid System in Compulsive Eating.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Neural circuits regulating activity-based anorexia.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Nonlinear and intensity-dependent enhancement of sweetness perception as a function of redness: Behavioral and EEG evidence for visual-gustatory cross-modal integration.Food chemistry: X · 2026Article
- Is High Fat and Sugar Intake Associated with Disrupted Attentional-Motivational Coupling for Food? Evidence from an Eye Tracking Study.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Clock Gene Variants Are Associated with Energy and Macronutrient Intake in Early Childhood and Adulthood.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Intermittency and Predictability of a Cafeteria Diet Shape Food Intake, Adiposity, and Neurobehavioral Outcomes in Rats.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Chronic Caffeine Consumption Prevents Body Weight Gain and Glucose Intolerance in High-Fat Diet-Induced Obesity Mice Model.Metabolites · 2026Article
- Sugar reduction in complex food systems: linking metabolic mechanisms, matrix engineering, and safety evaluation.NPJ science of food · 2026Review
- What a stimulus predicts, not what it depicts, determines striatal reward signals.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
94 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
It is becoming clearer how neurobiological mechanisms generate 'liking' and 'wanting' components of food reward. Mesocorticolimbic mechanisms that enhance 'liking' include brain hedonic hotspots, which are specialized subregions that are uniquely able to causally amplify the hedonic impact of palatable tastes. Hedonic hotspots are found in nucleus accumbens medial shell, ventral pallidum, orbitofrontal cortex, insula cortex, and brainstem. In turn, a much larger mesocorticolimbic circuitry generates 'wanting' or incentive motivation to obtain and consume food rewards. Hedonic and motivational circuitry interact together and with hypothalamic homeostatic circuitry, allowing relevant physiological hunger and satiety states to modulate 'liking' and 'wanting' for food rewards. In some conditions such as drug addiction, 'wanting' is known to dramatically detach from 'liking' for the same reward, and this may also occur in over-eating disorders. Via incentive sensitization, 'wanting' selectively becomes higher, especially when triggered by reward cues when encountered in vulnerable states of stress, etc. Emerging evidence suggests that some cases of obesity and binge eating disorders may reflect an incentive-sensitization brain signature of cue hyper-reactivity, causing excessive 'wanting' to eat. Future findings on the neurobiological bases of 'liking' and 'wanting' can continue to improve understanding of both normal food reward and causes of clinical eating disorders.
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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.