Endocrinol Metab.  2021 Apr;36(2):229-239. 10.3803/EnM.2021.979.

Dopaminergic Control of the Feeding Circuit

• Baik JH

• KMID: 2515451
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3803/EnM.2021.979

Abstract

There is increasing evidence demonstrating that reward-related motivational food intake is closely connected with the brain’s homeostatic system of energy balance and that this interaction might be important in the integrative control of feeding behavior. Dopamine regulates motivational behavior, including feeding behaviors, and the dopamine reward system is recognized as the most prominent system that controls appetite and motivational and emotional drives for food. It appears that the dopamine system exerts a critical role in the control of feeding behavior not only by the reward-related circuit, but also by contributing to the homeostatic circuit of food intake, suggesting that dopamine plays an integrative role across the converging circuitry of control of food intake by linking energy state-associated signals to reward-related behaviors. This review will cover and discuss up-to-date findings on the dopaminergic control of food intake by both the reward-related circuit and the homeostatic hypothalamic system.

Keyword

Dopamine; Reward; Homeostasis; Feeding behavior; Hypothalamus

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Dopaminergic control of food intake by reward circuit pathways. Schematic illustration of dopaminergic reward circuit pathways: the mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways, including projections from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Dopamine reward systems mediate the motivational and emotional drive for food, which involves learning, associated with the hedonic properties of food and the context of food intake. It has been suggested that leptin and insulin inhibit VTA dopamine neurons, while ghrelin activates them, thereby modulating the dopamine VTA-NAc reward circuits to control feeding behavior. Possible indirect effects of these hormones from the lateral hypothalamus, or from the effector-responsive neurons to the VTA, are not depicted here and remain to be elucidated. The nigrostriatal pathway constituting the projection of neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) to the dorsal striatum (DS), is also depicted. The role of DS in the control of feeding behavior is discussed in the main text.

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  Fig. 2 Dopaminergic control of food intake in the hypothalamus. Dopamine neurons (tyrosine-hydroxylase [TH]-positive) are present throughout the hypothalamus, particularly in the arcuate nucleus and dorsomedial nucleus. It has been reported that dopamine neurons of the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus colocalize with the vesicular GABA transporter and corelease GABA; these cells project to the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and communicate with leptin-responsive neurons, such as pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons or agouti-related peptide (AgRP) neurons. [50,51]. The effect of hypothalamic dopamine signaling is mediated mostly by D1R and D2R, and it appears that the D1R and D2R are located on POMC neurons, co-localized with leptin receptors in the arcuate nucleus, raising the possibility that dopamine signaling in the hypothalamus may be involved in the leptin signaling-mediated network to contribute to hypothalamic control of energy homeostasis. However, the details of the dopaminergic circuits in the hypothalamus are currently unknown. 3V, third ventricle.

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