Modulation of food reward by ghrelin

肥胖与多种病理疾病有关，包括癌症、心脏病、糖尿病和肾功能不全，所有这些都可能导致过早死亡和生活质量下降。在加拿大，肥胖率以及与此相关的健康和经济问题已经达到了令人震惊的水平。为了更好地了解导致代谢功能失衡的机制，这些措施得到了更多的努力，取得了一些令人鼓舞的结果，但从长远来看，在控制能量平衡和遏制肥胖方面仍然无效。造成这些缺陷的一个可能原因是，人们对与能量调节有关的大脑回路给予了极大的关注，而对喂食的激励方面关注相对较少。然而，人类的进食往往是由基本的体内平衡失衡以外的因素引起和调节的。这项提议试图提供证据，证明胃源性激素Ghrelin针对大脑中对显示动机行为至关重要的区域。拟议中的研究结果将有助于更好地理解目标寻求行为的荷尔蒙调节，并最终可能有助于开发新的方法来抑制对高热量食物的渴望，以及对滥用药物的渴望。

Obesity is related to a variety of pathologic conditions that include cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and renal insufficiency, all of which can lead to an early death and poor quality of life. In Canada, the rate of obesity and the health and economic issues associated with this condition have reached alarming levels. These have been met with increased efforts to better understand the mechanisms that lead to imbalances in metabolic function with some encouraging results, but still ineffective in controlling energy balance and curbing obesity in the long term. One possible reason for these shortcomings is that a great deal of attention has been given to brain circuits implicated in energy regulation, with relatively less attention paid to motivational aspects of feeding. Nevertheless, feeding in humans is often elicited and regulated by factors other than basic homeostatic imbalances. This proposal seeks to provide evidence that the stomach-derived hormone ghrelin targets brain regions important for the display of motivated behaviors. The results from the proposed studies will lead to a better understanding of the hormonal regulation of goal seeking behaviors, and ultimately may serve to develop novel approaches to curb cravings not only for high caloric foods, but also cravings for drugs of abuse.