- Eating behaviors are controlled by more than homeostatic mechanisms.
- As it has been pointed out,
– “If feeding were controlled solely by homeostatic mechanisms, most of us would be at our ideal body weight, and people would consider feeding like breathing or elimination, a necessary but unexciting part of existence”.
- As The fact that this is not the case suggests that there is a role for the reward systems in the brain to promote motivational, hedonically-driven eating.
- Thus, excessive food intake may be explained more by dysfunction in the homeostatic mechanisms controlling eating habits.
- Studies in both animals and humans have supported the hypothesis that brain reward circuitry may be dsyregulated in cases of obesity, disordered eating, and more recently, food addiction.
References
- Spangler R, Wittkowski KM, Goddard NL, et al. Opiate-like effects of sugar on gene expression in reward areas of the rat brain. Brain Res Mol Brain Res. 2004; 124(2), 134-42.
- Volkow ND, Wang GJ, Baler RD. Reward, dopamine and the control of food intake: implications for obesity. Trends Cogn Sci. 2011; 15(1), 37-46.
- Volkow ND, Wang GJ, Fowler JS, et al. Food and drug reward: overlapping circuits in human obesity and addiction. Current topics in behavioral neurosciences. 2012; 11, 1-24.
