Women who are obese run a higher risk of overeating to compensate for reduced pleasure receptors from consuming food in the brain, according to a UT study published last week in The Journal of Neuroscience.
Eric Stice, senior research fellow and adjunct associate professor of psychology, and his team of researchers found that eating releases dopamine in the part of the brain that controls pleasure. The more someone overeats, the more desensitized their brain becomes to stimulation, which in turn causes them to overeat even more and gain weight.
“Those who overeat, their brain responses change over time and it’s in a reward region,” said Sonja Yokum, research associate for Stice’s lab. “It’s activated when you eat food, when you have sex; basically, when you do something that’s really fun. What happens is like an over-stimulation. Your brain is less responsive to food, and so you have to eat more to get the same reward feeling.”
When someone overeats, their brain releases too much dopamine, further reducing the number of receptors, Stice said.
“It certainly fits with what I would have expected, given what we know from the study of addictions about dopamine and how it adapts to the intake of substances,” said Russell Poldrack, director of the Imaging Research Center and professor of psychology and neurobiology.
Read the full story at the Daily Texan.
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