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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Aug 1.
Published in final edited form as: Physiol Behav. 2016 Apr 9;162:10–17. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2016.03.039

Figure 1.

Figure 1

A model for ventral hippocampus (vHP) ghrelin-mediated conditioned feeding behavior (adapted from [111]): A) Humans and animals learn to anticipate feeding based on external or internal food cues (e.g. habitual circadian cues, food advertisements, and sight and/or smell of food). B) Ghrelin secreted from the stomach in anticipation of feeding crosses the blood-brain barrier and enters the central nervous system. C) Ghrelin activates ghrelin receptors expressed on vHP pyramidal neurons, which directly engages D) downstream activation of dpLHA orexin neurons and orexin secretion. E) Activation of this neural pathway and downstream orexin receptor signaling enhances learned feeding behavior.