Feelings about food: the ventral tegmental area in food reward and emotional eating

•Overconsumption of palatable food mediated by three partially overlapping systems acting on midbrain dopamine neurons.•Energy balance hormones act directly and indirectly on midbrain dopamine neurons.•Orexin, opioid, cannabinoid, and ghrelin signaling are potential targets to intervene with palatable food overconsumption.

Overconsumption of high caloric food plays an important role in the etiology of obesity. Several factors drive such hedonic feeding. High caloric food is often palatable. In addition, when an individual is sated, stress and food-related cues can serve as potent feeding triggers. A better understanding of the neurobiological underpinnings of food palatability and environmentally triggered overconsumption would aid the development of new treatment strategies. In the current review we address the pivotal role of the mesolimbic dopamine reward system in the drive towards high caloric palatable food and its relation to stress- and cue-induced feeding. We also discuss how this system may be affected by both established and potential anti-obesity drug targets.