Hungry for compliments? Ghrelin is not associated with neural responses to social rewards or their pleasantness.

ABSTRACT: The stomach-derived hormone ghrelin motivates food search and stimulates food consumption, with highest plasma concentrations before a meal and lowest shortly after. However, ghrelin also appears to affect the value of non-food rewards such as interaction with rat conspecifics, and monetary rewards in humans. The present pre-registered study investigated how nutritional state and ghrelin concentrations are related to the subjective and neural responses to social and non-social rewards. In a cross-over feed-and-fast design, 67 healthy volunteers (20 women) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a hungry state and after a meal with repeated plasma ghrelin measurements. In task 1, participants received social rewards in the form of approving expert feedback, or non-social c

SUBMITTER: Sailer U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10106620 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature