Figure 1. Areas of the Human Brain Activated in Response to Palatable Food or Food-Associated Cues.

The orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala are thought to encode information related to the reward value of food (Baxter and Murray, 2002; Holland and Gallagher, 2004; Kringelbach et al., 2003; O’Doherty et al., 2002; Rolls, 2010). The insula processes information related to the taste of food and its hedonic valuation (Balleine and Dickinson, 2000; Small, 2010). The nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum, which receive dopaminergic input from the ventral tegmental area and substantia nigra, regulate the motivational and incentive properties of food (Baicy et al., 2007; Berridge, 1996, 2009; Farooqi et al., 2007; Malik et al., 2008; Söderpalm and Berridge, 2000). The lateral hypothalamus may regulate rewarding responses to palatable food and drive food-seeking behaviors (Kelley et al., 1996). These brain structures act in a concerted manner to regulate learning about the hedonic properties of food, shifting attention and effort toward obtaining food rewards and regulating the incentive value of environmental stimuli that predict availability of food rewards (Dagher, 2009). For the sake of clarity, not all interconnections between these structures are shown.