Where's the Pleasure?

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Hi All,

Where's the Pleasure?

http://us.mc327.mail./mc/showMessage?fid=Inbox & sort=date & order=up & startMid=0 & .rand=2014176204 & da=0 & midIndex=0 & mid=1_41458_APjPjkQAAKDLSP3f9gA54HFkJNI & f=1 & nextMid=1_42296_APjPjkQAAPZCSP3mlgUtqjYZpv0 & m=1_41458_APjPjkQAAKDLSP3f9gA54HFkJNI,1_42296_APjPjkQAAPZCSP3mlgUtqjYZpv0,http://tinyurl.com/644g5a

Where's the Pleasure?

You'd think that people who overeat do so because food gives them so much pleasure. But new research suggests otherwise: For many overweight women, food doesn¢t deliver the joy it promises. Brain scans of 77 women of varied body types taken while those women sipped chocolate milkshakes showed that the obese women had a muted response to the release of the pleasure-related chemical dopamine in the brain when they drank the shakes. That muted response meant those women got less pleasure out of food than the lean women, whose dopamine response was more robust.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/16/AR2008101601986.html?wpisrc=newsletterhttp://tinyurl.com/5zvgv8

Stice E, Spoor S, Bohon C, Small DM.Relation between obesity and blunted striatal response to food is moderated by TaqIA A1 allele.Science. 2008 Oct 17;322(5900):449-52.PMID: 18927395

The dorsal striatum plays a role in consummatory food reward, and striatal dopamine receptors are reduced in obese individuals, relative to lean individuals, which suggests that the striatum and dopaminergic signaling in the striatum may contribute to the development of obesity. Thus, we tested whether striatal activation in response to food intake is related to current and future increases in body mass and whether these relations are moderated by the presence of the A1 allele of the TaqIA restriction fragment length polymorphism, which is associated with dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) gene binding in the striatum and compromised striatal dopamine signaling. Cross-sectional and prospective data from two functional magnetic resonance imaging studies support these hypotheses, which implies that individuals may overeat to compensate for a hypofunctioning dorsal striatum, particularly those with genetic polymorphisms thought to attenuate dopamine signaling

in this region.-- Aalt Pater__________________________________________________