The study was a collaboration between Jaume Lalanza, John Oyem, Patty Huijgens, James McCutcheon, Roy Heijkoop and Eelke Snoeren from UiT The Arctic University of Norway. We received funding from Helse Nord and MSCA-IF.

Our findings suggest that prolonged junk food exposure leads to lasting desensitization of the VTA to both food and sexual rewards, with significant behavioral changes in response to food rewards. 🍕🍰

We also found that a CAF diet alters reward circuitry more severely than a high-energy diet. Plus, a two-week healthy diet reversal wasn't enough to restore behavioral and neural changes.

Interestingly, while an attenuated VTA response was also found in response to sexual rewards, no significant behavioral differences were observed in sexual interactions.

In our study, rats on a CAF diet showed reduced appetitive and consummatory behaviors towards food rewards. This behavioral change was linked to diminished neural activity in the ventral tegmental area.