Circuit That Controls Overeating Found in the Brain

By Bahar Gholipour, Staff Writer | September 26, 2013 02:16pm ET

When a particular circuit in the brain is stimulated, it causes mice to voraciously gorge on food
even though they are well fed, and deactivating this circuit keeps starving mice from eating, a
new study shows.
The findings suggest that a breakdown within this neural network could contribute to unhealthy
eating behaviors, the researchers said, although more work is needed to see whether the findings
are also true of people.
The circuit lies in a brain area called the "bed nucleus of the stria terminalis" (BNST), and affects
eating by inhibiting activity in another region, called the lateral hypothalamus, which is known to
control eating, according to the study, published today (Sept. 26) in the journal Science.
"Normally, there's a population of neurons in the lateral hypothalamus that's putting the brakes
on eating," said study researcher Garret Stuber, a neuroscientist at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. "But when you shut those cells down by stimulating this pathway, that
releases the brake, and the animal starts to eat."
The lateral hypothalamus has been known for more than 50 years to be an important part of the
brain for controlling eating. Scientists had learned that putting stimulating electrodes in the
lateral hypothalamus of animals would influence their eating behavior, but exactly how it works
has been a mystery.
"Nobody had a good mechanistic explanation for what's actually being stimulated or activated
within this brain structure," Stuber said.
In the new study, the researchers focused on examining how the BNST influences activity in the
lateral hypothalamus.
To manipulate the BNST neurons, the researchers used a technique called optogenetics that
allowed them to activate specific neurons using light. They found that, upon activation, BNST
neurons suppressed activity in the lateral hypothalamus, and caused the well-fed mice to
immediately start eating.

"When we stimulate the pathway, the animals eat a third to 50 percent of the calories they eat in a
normal day, in about 20 minutes," Stuber said. For a person, that would probably be the
equivalent of eating lunch and dinner in one sitting, he said. [7 Foods You Can Overdose On]
What's more, the researchers gave the animals a choice in some of the experiments between
regular food and a tasty food with a high fat content, analogous to junk food. They found that
when they activated the circuit, the animals showed a strong preference for the junk food.
Conversely, deactivating the circuit caused the animals to immediately stop eating, even if their
stomachs were empty.
The BNST is thought to be a hub that integrates emotionally relevant information coming from
several parts of the brain. Although the experiments didn't aim to study the link between
emotional states and feeding behavior, the findings may explain how emotions can influence
eating, Stuber said.
"BNST is really important for affective behavior state in response to emotionally relevant
stimuli, and the results show the output of those cells can actually directly modulate feeding
behavior," he said.
Identifying a neural circuit that controls feeding, and understanding how the cells in this circuit
work, could lead to future treatments for such conditions as obesity, the researchers said.
"Now that we know this is a critical circuit for feeding, we can start looking at this in humans,"
Stuber said.