STRESS can trigger binge eating and compulsive drug-taking. But how?
Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues suggest that stress hormones might actually change how much we value a reward, increasing our desire for something pleasurable without actually increasing our enjoyment.
Berridge’s team injected the stress hormone corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) into the nucleus accumbens of rats’ brains, a part of the dopamine “reward circuitry” responsible for wanting or desire. These rats had been trained to press a lever to get a dose of sugar and to associate hearing a certain tone with getting that sugar. The stressed rats worked harder at…
