Growth Hormone Secretagogue Receptor (GHSR) Signaling in the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) Mediates Feeding Produced by Chronic Social Defeat Stress in Male Mice
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Ghrelin, a hormone secreted by the stomach, binds to the growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR) in various brain regions to produce a number of behavioral effects that include increased feeding motivation. During social defeat stress, ghrelin levels rise in correlation with increased feeding and potentially play a role in attenuating the anxiogenic effects of social defeat. One region implicated in the feeding effects of ghrelin is the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a region implicated in reward seeking behaviors, and linked to social defeat in mice. Here we examined the role of GHSR signaling in the VTA in feeding behavior in mice exposed to social defeat stress. Male C57BL/J6 mice that were socially defeated once daily for 3 weeks ate more, had higher plasma ghrelin level and increased GHSR expression in the VTA compared to non-stressed mice. Socially defeated GHSR KO mice failed to increase their caloric intake in response to this stressor but rescue of GHSR expression in the VTA restored feeding responses. Finally, we pharmacologically blocked VTA GHSR signalling with JMV2959 infused via an indwelling VTA cannula connected to a minipump. Vehicle-treated mice increased their caloric intake during social defeat, but JMV2959-infusions attenuated feeding responses and increased anxiety-like behaviors. The data suggest that GHSR signalling in the VTA is critical for the increases in appetite observed during chronic social defeat stress. Furthermore, these data support the idea that GHSR signaling in the VTA may also have anxiolytic effects, and blocking GHSR in this region may result in an anxiety-like phenotype.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".