September 20, 2021 — The concept of food addiction holds strong sway in popular culture. You can find tips for overcoming it. WebMD will tell you how to diagnose and treat it. Psychiatrist Anna Lembke has a book to sell you. In Dopamine Nation, she describes the source of addictive behaviors linked to food, phones, and sex. It was […]
August 14, 2017 — For several years now, neuroscientists have been looking for connections between obesity and how our brains process rewards. Dopamine receptors play a role in the reward you feel when you eat especially tasty foods. And prior research suggests people with obesity have fewer dopamine receptors. Now new research in Obesity shows that young adults with […]
March 31, 2017 — Brain function can play a role in the development of obesity. And in turn obesity can play a role in brain function. Many knowledge gaps remain, but fascinating insights keep coming. And dopamine – an important neurotransmitter – seems to lie at the heart of changes in the brain linked to obesity. More and more research links dopamine […]
January 3, 2017 — Drug addiction changes human brains. One of those changes is a depletion of dopamine receptors. In obesity, dopamine and its receptors may have a role, but many questions remain. And now, new animal research raises yet another question. Could it be that changes in dopamine receptors make physical activity more difficult in obesity? Danielle Friend […]
June 20, 2016 — New research from Washington University has identified an abnormal dopamine response to sugar in the brains of people with obesity as they age. Lead author of the study, Marta Pepino, explained: We believe we may have identified a new abnormality in the relationship between reward response to food and dopamine in the brains of individuals with […]
