| First Author | Mizoguchi A | Year | 2021 |
| Journal | Sci Rep | Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 1 | Pages | 12873 |
| PubMed ID | 34145364 | Mgi Jnum | J:310620 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6720165 | Doi | 10.1038/s41598-021-92386-7 |
| Citation | Mizoguchi A, et al. (2021) Glucocorticoid receptor signaling in ventral tegmental area neurons increases the rewarding value of a high-fat diet in mice. Sci Rep 11(1):12873 |
| abstractText | The reward system, which consists of dopaminergic neurons projecting from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the nucleus accumbens and caudate-putamen in the striatum, has an important role in the pathogenesis of not only drug addiction but also diet-induced obesity. In the present study, we examined whether signaling through glucocorticoid receptors (GRs) in the reward system affects the rewarding value of a high-fat diet (HFD). To do so, we generated mice that lack functional GRs specifically in dopaminergic neurons (D-KO mice) or corticostriatal neurons (CS-KO mice), subjected the mice to caloric restriction stress conditions, and evaluated the rewarding value of a HFD by conditioned place preference (CPP) test. Caloric restriction induced increases in serum corticosterone to similar levels in all genotypes. While CS-KO as well as WT mice exhibited a significant preference for HFD in the CPP test, D-KO mice exhibited no such preference. There were no differences between WT and D-KO mice in consumption of HFD after fasting or cognitive function evaluated by a novel object recognition test. These data suggest that glucocorticoid signaling in the VTA increases the rewarding value of a HFD under restricted caloric stress. |
