The Effect of Inhibiting GABAergic Neurons in the Ventral Pallidum Relating to Food Reward Consumption
Many factors contribute to overeating including the brain circuitry that contributes to food-seeking. The ventral pallidum (VP) is an important brain structure involved in food-seeking circuitry. While previous research has shown that VP activation and inhibition affects food consumption, the specific cell types contributing to this effect remains unknown.
We examined how GABAergic VP cells, which are naturally inhibitory neurons, are involved in food consumption. We activated or inhibited VP GABAergic neurons using designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs) during a food consumption task to examine the functional role of these neurons on chow consumption.
Results of the experiment found that activation of GABAergic VP neurons in male rats increased chow consumption at high concentrations of DREADD ligand, while low concentrations reduced consumption. Alternatively, inhibition of GABAergic VP neurons had no significant change in chow consumption. Together, these findings show that GABAergic VP neurons are an important cell type in food consumption. Further work is needed to examine the greater circuit these neurons are contributing to as well as additional determination of the effects of other appetitive rewards, such as sucrose or high fat chow.