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© 2018, Buchel et al. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

It has been hypothesized that the pleasure of a reward in humans is mediated by an opioidergic system involving the hypothalamus, nucleus accumbens and the amygdala. Importantly, enjoying the pleasure of a reward is distinct from incentive salience induced by cues predicting the reward. We investigated this issue using a within subject, pharmacological challenge design with the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone and fMRI. Our data show that blocking opioid receptors reduced pleasure associated with viewing erotic pictures more than viewing symbols of reward such as money. This was paralleled by a reduction of activation in the ventral striatum, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, hypothalamus and medial prefrontal cortex. Crucially, the naloxone induced activation decrease was observed at reward delivery, but not during reward anticipation, indicating that blocking opioid receptors decreases the pleasure of rewards in humans.

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Details

Title
Hedonic processing in humans is mediated by an opioidergic mechanism in a mesocorticolimbic system
Author
Buchel, Christian; Miedl Stephan; Sprenger, Christian
University/institution
U.S. National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine
Publication year
2018
Publication date
2018
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications Ltd.
e-ISSN
2050084X
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2140011475
Copyright
© 2018, Buchel et al. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.