Dopamine signaling in food addiction: role of dopamine D2 receptors

Abstract

Dopamine (DA) regulates emotional and motivationalbehavior through the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway.Changes in DA signaling in mesolimbic neurotransmission arewidely believed to modify reward-related behaviors and aretherefore closely associated with drug addiction. Recentevidence now suggests that as with drug addiction, obesitywith compulsive eating behaviors involves reward circuitry ofthe brain, particularly the circuitry involving dopaminergicneural substrates. Increasing amounts of data from humanimaging studies, together with genetic analysis, havedemonstrated that obese people and drug addicts tend to showaltered expression of DA D2 receptors in specific brain areas,and that similar brain areas are activated by food-related anddrug-related cues. This review focuses on the functions of theDA system, with specific focus on the physiological interpretationand the role of DA D2 receptor signaling in foodaddiction. [BMB Reports 2013; 46(11): 519-526]

Keywords

• Addiction
• Dopamine
• Dopamine receptor
• Food reward
• Reward circuit