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Pleasurable behaviors reduce stress via brain reward pathways
Open accessAbstract
Individuals often eat calorically dense, highly palatable "comfort" foods during stress for stress relief. This article demonstrates that palatable food intake (limited intake of sucrose drink) reduces neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and behavioral responses to stress in rats. Artificially sweetened (saccharin) drink reproduces the stress dampening, whereas oral intragastric gavage of sucrose is without effect. Together, these results suggest that the palatable/rewarding properties of sucrose are necessary and sufficient for stress dampening. In support of this finding, another type of natural reward (sexual activity) similarly reduces stress responses. Ibotenate lesions of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) prevent stress dampening by sucrose, suggesting that neural activity in the BLA is necessary for the effect. Moreover, sucrose intake increases mRNA and protein expression in the BLA for numerous genes linked with functional and/or structural plasticity. Lastly, stress dampening by sucrose is persistent, which is consistent with long-term changes in neural activity after synaptic remodeling. Thus, natural rewards, such as palatable foods, provide a general means of stress reduction, likely via structural and/or functional plasticity in the BLA. These findings provide a clearer understanding of the motivation for consuming palatable foods during times of stress and influence therapeutic strategies for the prevention and/or treatment of obesity and other stress-related disorders.
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“basic science evidence in laboratory animals that sucrose and palatable snack foods dampen HPA axis stress responses”
From Role of addiction and stress neurobiology on food intake and obesity (2018) · cites this paper as Ulrich-Lai et al., 2010
In the citing paper
“In a negative feedback loop, activation of central nervous reward circuits by consuming sucrose reduces stress-induced HPA axis activity (46).”
From Oxytocin Reduces Reward-Driven Food Intake in Humans (2013) · cites this paper as [46]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Ulrich-Lai, Y. M., Christiansen, A. M., Ostrander, M. M., Jones, A. A., Jones, K. R., Choi, D. C., Krause, E. G., Evanson, N. K., Furay, A. R., Davis, J. F., Solomon, M. B., de Kloet, A. D., Tamashiro, K. L., Sakai, R. R., Seeley, R. J., Woods, S. C., & Herman, J. P.
- Affiliations
- Departments of aPsychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience and
- Emory University (US)
- University of Washington (US)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- University of Cincinnati (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2010-11-08
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 47
- Pages
- 20529-20534
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC2996660
- OpenAlex
- W2006105580
- Cited by
- 231
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 20
- FWCI
- 6.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
- National Institutes of Health (MH049698, DK056863)
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH049698, MH 069725, MH049698, R01MH069725)
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (DK014877, DK054890, DK-056863, DK-066596, DK078906, R01DK054890, F32DK067820, R01DK017844, K01DK078906, P01DK056863, DK067820, R01DK066596)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (F31NS047791)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Regulation of Appetite and Obesity
- Keywords
- stress reduction, palatable food, sucrose, comfort food, brain reward system, basolateral amygdala, saccharin, natural reward, sexual activity, neuroendocrine stress response, synaptic plasticity, obesity, stress-related disorders
- MeSH terms
- Amygdala, Analysis of Variance, Animals, Behavior, Animal, Cardiovascular Physiological Phenomena, Hormones, Male, Stress, Psychological, Sucrose, Telemetry, Microarray Analysis, Rats, Pleasure
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