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Opioid peptide signal in the brain makes mice hungrier for reward

Release of opioid peptide in the brain leads food-deprived mice to eat more sugar than do mice that are well fed. This opioid signalling mechanism fine-tunes the reward value of food according to the animal’s state.
  1. Lola Welsch

    1. Lola Welsch is in the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and at INSERM U1114, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg 67084, France.

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  2. Brigitte L. Kieffer

    1. Brigitte L. Kieffer is in the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and at INSERM U1114, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg 67084, France.

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Eating even a simple snack is much more pleasurable when you are hungry than when you are already well fed. During fasting, complex brain mechanisms evaluate an animal’s internal state, as well as the caloric and pleasurable (hedonic) values of the food, to ultimately drive eating. In the brain, several molecular signalling systems act together in this process, including the opioid system, which is composed of several opioid peptides and their receptors. The latter are the targets of opioid drugs such as morphine and heroin that have strong pain-reducing and notoriously addictive properties1,2. The brain’s opioid system contributes to the hedonic value of natural rewards such as food, sex and social interactions3, but the exact opioid peptide signal and receptor involved, and where they interact, have been challenging to determine. Writing in Nature, Castro et al.4 identify an opioid-system-tuned brain circuit that drives hungry mice to eat more of a sugar reward than do well-fed mice.

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Nature 598, 568-570 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02723-z

References

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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