Reward Pathway

Decent Essays
I consider that you have presented a good argument related to your selected topic. Your argument related to food, especially carbohidrates, and addiction has been well supported by many scholars. If your are going to consider addiction and neurological processes, I would advise you to consider the reward pathway theory (also called the mesolimbic pathway). Many researchers suggests that several types of addictions have similar brain patterns as in the case of drug addictions. To explain the reward pathway, it is important to understand the function of several brain structures: the ventral tegmental area (VTA), amygdala, nucleus accumbens (NA), the prefrontal cortex, and the hippocampus (Garrett, 2011).

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is where dopanime originates, and it is widely considered to be involved in drug addiction, intense emotions (e.g. love), and many psychiatric disorders (Desai, 2014; Ungless, Magill, & Bolam, 2004). The amygdala is in charge of emotions;
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drugs, food, gambling, etc.) serve as a stimulus to receive a reward. When the body receives any of these stimulus, it would perceive it as pleasurable; consequently, the person will be prone to engage on the behavior again (Desai, 2014). It is important to highlight that as dopanime secretion increases, serotonin decreases; and serotonin is in part repnsible of feelings of cessation. The study conducted by Skibicka and colleagues (2012) might be an article that might also assit you on your project. They found that ghrelin (a gut-derived orexigenic hormone) delivery, significantly enhance an animal amount of work to obtain sucrose (carbohydrate found in many plants and plant parts) reward. They also argue that their findings are paired with the hypothesis that an essential role of the central ghrelin signaling system is to increase the motivation of rewards, including food.
I have included this link that might help you understand the mesolimbic reward pathway. I wish you the

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