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Articles, Systems/Circuits

Basolateral Amygdala Response to Food Cues in the Absence of Hunger Is Associated with Weight Gain Susceptibility

Xue Sun, Nils B. Kroemer, Maria G. Veldhuizen, Amanda E. Babbs, Ivan E. de Araujo, Darren R. Gitelman, Robert S. Sherwin, Rajita Sinha and Dana M. Small
Journal of Neuroscience 20 May 2015, 35 (20) 7964-7976; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3884-14.2015
Xue Sun
1Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06520,
3The John B. Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut 06519,
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Nils B. Kroemer
3The John B. Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut 06519,
4Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06511,
5Department of Psychiatry and Neuroimaging Center, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden 01187, Germany,
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Maria G. Veldhuizen
3The John B. Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut 06519,
4Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06511,
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Amanda E. Babbs
3The John B. Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut 06519,
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Ivan E. de Araujo
3The John B. Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut 06519,
4Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06511,
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Darren R. Gitelman
3The John B. Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut 06519,
6Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge, Illinois 60068,
7Department of Neurology, Rosalind Franklin University Medical School, North Chicago, Illinois 60064,
8Department of Neurology and Radiology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois 60611,
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Robert S. Sherwin
9Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, and
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Rajita Sinha
4Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06511,
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Dana M. Small
1Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06520,
2Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520,
3The John B. Pierce Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut 06519,
4Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06511,
10Center for Excellence, University of Cologne, Cologne 50931, Germany
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Abstract

In rodents, food-predictive cues elicit eating in the absence of hunger (Weingarten, 1983). This behavior is disrupted by the disconnection of amygdala pathways to the lateral hypothalamus (Petrovich et al., 2002). Whether this circuit contributes to long-term weight gain is unknown. Using fMRI in 32 healthy individuals, we demonstrate here that the amygdala response to the taste of a milkshake when sated but not hungry positively predicts weight change. This effect is independent of sex, initial BMI, and total circulating ghrelin levels, but it is only present in individuals who do not carry a copy of the A1 allele of the Taq1A polymorphism. In contrast, A1 allele carriers, who have decreased D2 receptor density (Blum et al., 1996), show a positive association between caudate response and weight change. Regardless of genotype, however, dynamic causal modeling supports unidirectional gustatory input from basolateral amygdala (BLA) to hypothalamus in sated subjects. This finding suggests that, as in rodents, external cues gain access to the homeostatic control circuits of the human hypothalamus via the amygdala. In contrast, during hunger, gustatory inputs enter the hypothalamus and drive bidirectional connectivity with the amygdala. These findings implicate the BLA–hypothalamic circuit in long-term weight change related to nonhomeostatic eating and provide compelling evidence that distinct brain mechanisms confer susceptibility to weight gain depending upon individual differences in dopamine signaling.

  • feeding
  • fMRI
  • metabolism
  • obesity
  • satiety
  • TaqIA
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The Journal of Neuroscience: 35 (20)
Journal of Neuroscience
Vol. 35, Issue 20
20 May 2015
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Basolateral Amygdala Response to Food Cues in the Absence of Hunger Is Associated with Weight Gain Susceptibility
Xue Sun, Nils B. Kroemer, Maria G. Veldhuizen, Amanda E. Babbs, Ivan E. de Araujo, Darren R. Gitelman, Robert S. Sherwin, Rajita Sinha, Dana M. Small
Journal of Neuroscience 20 May 2015, 35 (20) 7964-7976; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3884-14.2015

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Basolateral Amygdala Response to Food Cues in the Absence of Hunger Is Associated with Weight Gain Susceptibility
Xue Sun, Nils B. Kroemer, Maria G. Veldhuizen, Amanda E. Babbs, Ivan E. de Araujo, Darren R. Gitelman, Robert S. Sherwin, Rajita Sinha, Dana M. Small
Journal of Neuroscience 20 May 2015, 35 (20) 7964-7976; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3884-14.2015
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Keywords

  • feeding
  • fMRI
  • metabolism
  • obesity
  • satiety
  • TaqIA

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