Feeding increases dopamine metabolism in the rat brain.

Feeding induced by food deprivation is accompanied by an increased production of the dopamine metabolite 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid in the brains of rats. This neurochemical change occurs in the nucleus accumbens, the posterior hypothalamus, and the amygdala but not in other dopaminergic nerve terminal fields such as the corpus striatum. These results indicate that the release of dopamine from particular groups of central neurons is increased during feeding and suggest that anatomically distinct subgroups of central dopaminergic neurons serve different roles in the regulation of food intake.