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Comment
. 2014:3:e01928.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.01928. Epub 2014 Jan 7.

The emerging neurobiology of calorie addiction

Cristina García-Cáceres  1 , Matthias H Tschöp
Affiliations
Comment

The emerging neurobiology of calorie addiction

Cristina García-Cáceres et al. Elife. 2014.

Abstract

The response of the brain to sugar is determined by specific cell populations in the brain, including neurons that secrete melanin-concentrating hormone, and culminates in the release of dopamine.

Keywords: feeding behavior; metabolism; neuronal circuits; nutrient; obesity; optogenetics.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests:The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Different responses to sucrose and sucralose.
Domingos et al. showed that sucrose activates melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) neurons in the lateral hypothalamus (LH), which leads to the release of dopamine (DA) in the striatum: pathway shown in red. In contrast, sucralose can only induce the release of dopamine if optogenetic techniques are used to activate the MCH neurons; pathway shown in green. However, it is almost certain that various other neuronal pathways (shown by black dashed lines) are involved; these might include orexin/hypocretin (OX) neurons in the lateral hypothalamus, or other neurons elsewhere in the brain.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

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