Low-Dose Stevia (Rebaudioside A) Consumption Perturbs Gut Microbiota and the Mesolimbic Dopamine Reward System

Ghrelin Signalling on Food Reward: A Salient Link Between the Gut and the Mesolimbic System

'Hunger is the best spice' is an old and wise saying that acknowledges the fact that almost any food tastes better when we are hungry. The neurobiological underpinnings of this lore include activation of the brain's reward system and the stimulation of this system by the hunger-promoting hormone ghrelin. Ghrelin is produced largely from the stomach and levels are higher preprandially. The ghrel...

Effects of Low-Dose Non-Caloric Sweetener Consumption on Gut Microbiota in Mice

Abstract: Non-caloric artificial sweeteners (NASs) provide sweet tastes to food without adding calories or glucose. NASs can be used as alternative sweeteners for controlling blood glucose levels and weight gain. Although the consumption of NASs has increased over the past decade in Japan and other countries, whether these sweeteners affect the composition of the gut microbiome is unclear. In t...

Brain reward circuitry beyond the mesolimbic dopamine system: a neurobiological theory.

Reductionist attempts to dissect complex mechanisms into simpler elements are necessary, but not sufficient for understanding how biological properties like reward emerge out of neuronal activity. Recent studies on intracranial self-administration of neurochemicals (drugs) found that rats learn to self-administer various drugs into the mesolimbic dopamine structures-the posterior ventral tegmen...

Cholinergic modulation of mesolimbic dopamine function and reward.

The substantial health risk posed by obesity and compulsive drug use has compelled a serious research effort to identify the neurobiological substrates that underlie the development these pathological conditions. Despite substantial progress, an understanding of the neurochemical systems that mediate the motivational aspects of drug-seeking and craving remains incomplete. Important work from th...

Gut Microbiota and Neuropsychiatric Disorders