Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Hunger is a gatekeeper of pain in the brain

A neuronal population has now been found that regulates two competing needs — hunger and pain. Urgent pain overrides hunger, but appetite-inducing neuronal activity dampens long-term pain responses to enable feeding.
  1. Alexey Ponomarenko

    1. lexey Ponomarenko is at the Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf 40225, Germany.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  2. Tatiana Korotkova

    1. Tatiana Korotkova is at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research, Cologne 50931, Germany.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

The body’s basic needs include a timely supply of nutrients and the avoidance of tissue damage, which are signalled in the brain by hunger and pain, respectively. But these needs cannot be fulfilled simultaneously, because their resolution involves mutually exclusive behaviours. How does the brain prioritize the more urgent need? Writing in Cell, Alhadeff et al.1 report that the brain’s priorities are set depending on the type of pain involved. Hunger-mediating neurons suppress long-term inflammatory pain, but acute pain, which signals an immediate threat, dampens the activity of these neurons and thus deprioritizes feeding.

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Nature 556, 445-446 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-04759-0

References

  1. Alhadeff, A. L. et al. Cell 173, 140–152 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Aponte, Y., Atasoy, D. & Sternson, S. M. Nature Neurosci. 14, 351–355 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Gropp, E. et al. Nature Neurosci. 8, 1289–1291 (2005).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Luquet, S., Perez, F. A., Hnasko, T. S. & Palmiter, R. D. Science 310, 683–685 (2005).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Betley, J. N., Cao, Z. F. H., Ritola, K. D. & Sternson, S. M. Cell 155, 1337–1350 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Steculorum, S. M. et al. Cell 165, 125–138 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Campos, C. A., Bowen, A. J., Roman, C. W. & Palmiter, R. D. Nature 555, 617-622 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Carter, M. E., Soden, M. E., Zweifel, L. S. & Palmiter, R. D. Nature 503, 111–114 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Krashes, M. J., Shah, B. P., Koda, S. & Lowell, B. B. Cell Metab. 18, 588–595 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Chen, Y., Lin, Y.-C., Kuo, T.-W. & Knight, Z. A. Cell 160, 829–841 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Sternson, S. M. & Eiselt, A.-K. Annu. Rev. Physiol. 79, 401–423 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Saper, C. B. & Loewy, A. D. Brain Res. 197, 291–317(1980).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Jennings, J. H. et al. Cell 160, 516–527 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Nieh, E. H. et al. Cell 160, 528–541 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Carus-Cadavieco, M. et al. Nature 542, 232–236 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links