Food Addiction and Conditioned Taste Preference
With obesity as a growing epidemic in the United States and fast food chains available on every corner, food addiction has become a prevalent problem in our country. Foods that contain salt and sugar are being consumed at unhealthy amounts and due to its addictive sensation, it is imperative to comprehend the relationship between taste preferences and food addiction.
An experiment that examined the influence of the opioid system in expressing and acquiring sugar-related conditioned place preference tests, studied whether naltrexone (an opioid antagonist that is most commonly used to counteract drug and alcohol addiction) influenced flavor preferences in rats. (Delamator et al. 1999) The hypothesis of this article is that CPPs can be used with natural reinforcers and that the opioid system plays a significant role in this learning.
Another experiment compared the affects of opioid receptor subtypes while rats were injected with either saccharine solution and maltose dextrin solution, to figure out which receptors were involved in regulating the ingestion of substances with preferred tastes. (Beczkowska et al. 1993) The hypothesis of the experiment is that the opioid system regulates sugar intake since naloxone and natltrexone reduce intake in rats.
The third experiment …
I chose this topic to get a more concise understanding of the relationship between food addiction and conditioned place preferences and to be able to learn just how drugs can be used to alter these states. The purpose of this paper is to better understand the relations between food addiction and conditioned taste preference by examining and interpreting experiments that have been conducted by other neuroscientist...
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... that delta 2 receptors are involved in the regulation of hedonic orosensory signals, meaning how pleasurable taste preferences are.
Opioid Receptors Alter Sucrose (Methods)
Procedure
This study compares the effectiveness of centrally-administered opioid receptor subtype antagonists to inhibit intake of either a 10% sucrose solution or water after being dehydrated for 24 hours. The rats used for this experiment were kept on a 12h light and dark cycle and were housed individually. They underwent surgery to insert a stainless stell guide cannula above the left lateral ventral. After having a week to recover, they were water deprived for 24 hours and given access to10% sucrose solution in a tube and tested on three occasions … The rats received between 3 and 9 microinjections at weekly intervals in different groups.bgvfcdxszfgh
Results
The problem behavior associated with individuals making bad food choices when presented with unhealthy food will need to be observed so that we may understand how to change this behavior as it is unhealthy and harmful to health overall. Are poor choices in different foods causing obesity? Making poor choices when it comes to food is an
Yeomans, Martin R. "Understanding Individual Differences in Acquired Flavour Liking in Humans." Chemosensory Perception 3.1 (2010): 34-41. Print.
In the essay “Her Chee-to Heart”, by Jill McCorkle, she discusses about the various difficulties she has encountered of being a junk-food junkie and the struggles of overcoming the guilty pleasures of junk food. Firstly, one of the many difficulties she encounters are her feelings, which ultimately overwhelm her into continuing to eat various types of junk foods. Her feelings of nostalgic memories when consuming such goods as a child, the enjoyment and the savory tastes it grants her, are constantly mentioned throughout the essay, directly contributing a major factor into her desires of junk food. Furthermore, while she is quite aware of the consequences regarding the health side effects of consuming such foods and what the food is ultimately
Opioids are a class of drugs which have been used since ancient times to reduce pain.
In Michael Moss’ “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” he argues that companies have a huge influence on what consumers purchase and have been successfully able to get people addicted to junk foods because one’s willpower does not overpower their lack of adequate information and time, vulnerability to manipulative marketing and formulation of products, and their socioeconomic status.
Drugs seem to cause surges in dopamine neurotransmitters and other pleasure brain messengers. However, the brain quickly adapts and these circuits desensitize, which allows for withdrawal symptoms to occur (3). Drug addiction works on some of the same neurobiological mechanisms that aid in learning and memories (3). "This new view of dopamine as an aid to learning rather than a pleasure mediator may help explain why many addictive drugs, which unleash massive surges of the neurotransmitter in the brain, can drive continued use without producing pleasure-as when cocaine addicts continue to take hits long after the euphoric effects of the drug have worn off or when smokers smoke after cigarettes become distasteful." (4)
I am very tempted to try the new food since it might taste good, but on the other hand it may not taste good and may even give me a stomach-ache or food poisoning. The final decision when trying a new food usually depends on how it looks. In Rozin’s studies, he observed these two emotions in rats. The rats would nibble on the new food and wait to see if it affected them negatively, learning not to eat it if it hurt them. Pollan believed that Rozin’s work on the “omnivoral problem” would explain how animals select food and “adaptations in primates as well as a wide range of otherwise baffling cultural practices in humans” (Pollan 289)....
Not only are today’s families far less active, but easy access to rich-tasting, cheap food can be addictive. The fast food industry knows this and uses this information to make foods which make the brain crave more. In his book Salt Sugar Fat, author Michael Moss discussed this in an interview with food scientist Steve Witherly.
Sprouting from American obsessive-compulsive eating habits is a number of disorders and conditions: diabetes, high blood pressure, high c...
Addictive drugs like nicotine and cocaine and heroin, all can rewire the brain to crave the satisfaction that these agents produce. The desire becomes so strong that it starts to take over the body and it no longer becomes for pleasure and it becomes a need for your body. Now likewise, some people argue that some foods have the same power and effects on people that drugs do, where some of these foods can alter the brain in a way that is resets the appetite and satisfaction threshold in a way that it’s out of reach, meaning a person can never have enough. The obesity levels these days semi-dangerous, so some doctors have conducted an experiment that tested the effects of some foods on the brain, where they took 12 obese men after they consumed two milkshakes, whit the same amount of calories, protein, fat and carbohydrates, and they were equally sweet. (Sifferlin 2013) On the other hand one milkshake had much higher glycemic index from the carbohydrates. After the a few hours the blood sugar levels went down leaving the men hungry again. But after they ate the region of the brain that is related to addictive drugs and behaviors was triggered. In this paper food addiction is discussed and shown that it is a real problem that further critical analysis and experiments should be conducted on such issue.
Carey, Carrera, and Damaintopoulos (2014) state in their article that Pavlovian conditioning of drug effects is generally acknowledged to be a critical factor in the development and persistence of drug addiction. In drug conditioning the focus has essentially been on one type of Pavlovian conditioning, namely, delay conditioning in which the CS and drug UCS overlap and are temporally contiguous. In this paper, we will further discuss this theory and others in the relationship of Pavlovian conditioning and addiction in more detail.
Food is a major part of everyone’s everyday life. It’s hard to imagine life without the chocolate cake on your fingers or a carne asada taco in your mouth. Enjoying delicious desserts and fast food seem extremely magnificent to eat and spend money buying them. Although, there have been many controversies in the United States on how it’s the largest country with the most obesity regarding children, which affects their health, many people are still going throughout their day snacking. Many people in America are having full course meals with thousands of calories in one sitting not knowing the short term or long term side effects that are going to take a huge toll on their lives. Food is delicious, but it comes with a secret behind the savoriness/sweetness.
The Journal of Neuroscience Dobler-Mikola, A. Gschwed, P. Gutzwiller, F. Steffen, T. Rehm, J. Uch engagen, A. Feasibility, Safety, and Efficacy of Injectable Heroin Prescription for Refractory Opioid Addicts: a follow-up study. The Lancet, volume 358, pg. 1417-1420. Everitt, B. Robbins, T. (1999) Drug addiction: bad habits add up. Macmillian Magazines, volume 389, pg.
“Dopamine System May Be the Key to Addiction.” News Briefs. Nature Magazine. May-June 2012. National Drug Strategy Network. Web. 20 Apr. 2015
Through various observations and assumptions, there have been conversations on whether or not overconsumption of food is an addiction. However, many have come to the conclusion that food is an addiction if it is overconsume excessively than it is necessary for an individual’s diet. Nevertheless, food addiction can create health issues that can affect an individual’s body. Even though, many individual may have such knowledge of overconsumption of food; however, many may choose to ignore the consequences that comes with food addiction. Becoming a food addict is harmful and dangerous to an individual’s health.