The neural basis of drug craving: An incentive-sensitization theory of addiction

New information regarding neuronal circuits that control food intake and their hormonal regulation has extended our understanding of energy homeostasis, the process whereby energy intake is matched to energy expenditure over time. The profound obesity that results in rodents (and in the rare human case as well) from mutation of key signalling molecules involved in this regulatory system highlights its importance to human health. Although each new signalling pathway discovered in the hypothalamus is a potential target for drug development in the treatment of obesity, the growing number of such signalling molecules indicates that food intake is controlled by a highly complex process. To better understand how energy homeostasis can be achieved, we describe a model that delineates the roles of individual hormonal and neuropeptide signalling pathways in the control of food intake and the means by which obesity can arise from inherited or acquired defects in their function.

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Central nervous system control of food intake

Well-being : the foundations of hedonic psychology

As humans, we perceive feelings from our bodies that relate our state of well-being, our energy and stress levels, our mood and disposition. How do we have these feelings? What neural processes do they represent? Recent functional anatomical work has detailed an afferent neural system in primates and in humans that represents all aspects of the physiological condition of the physical body. This system constitutes a representation of 'the material me', and might provide a foundation for subjective feelings, emotion and self-awareness.

How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body.

https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/research&labs/berridge/publications/Berridge&RobinsonBrResRev1998.pdf

What is the role of dopamine in reward: hedonic impact, reward learning, or incentive salience?

Dietary sodium deprivation alters gustatory neural responses to sodium stimuli both on the periphery and in the central nervous system. This change is thought to influence the compensatory behavior that restores sodium balance. Prior investigations used anesthetized preparations, across subjects designs, and, in one instance, diets that differed in nutrient, as well as sodium, content [1]. In the present experiment, we used the same awake, behaving animals before and during dietary sodium deprivation, isolated single neurons from the nucleus of the solitary tract (NST), and tested their response to a battery of sapid stimuli.

Ralph Norgren

Papers

Dietary NaCl Deficiency Affects Gustatory Neurons in the Nucleus of the Solitary Tract of Behaving Rats