Research paper
Volkow ND, Wang GJ, Fowler JS, Tomasi D, Baler R. Food and drug reward: overlapping circuits in human obesity and addiction. Curr Top Behav Neurosci. 2012;11:1-24.
Why we cite it
A review synthesizing PET imaging evidence for overlapping brain circuits in obesity and drug addiction, from the team that pioneered this research at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The key finding is that both conditions involve impairments in five dopaminergic neuronal systems: reward sensitivity (reduced D2 receptors), incentive motivation (enhanced cue reactivity), conditioning/memory (learned associations with environmental cues), impulse control (prefrontal dysfunction), and stress reactivity. This supports the food advertising companion (216): food advertising exploits the same conditioned-cue and incentive-motivation circuits that are dysregulated in both obesity and addiction, explaining why food cues can override conscious intentions.
Known defects on this page:
- Most reference pages are missing their About the authors section Most of our reference pages leave out the section about who wrote the paper