Food might be addictive

The neuroscience of nutrition is a relatively new field. I suspect that once it really gets going, it will shed light on some unsolved problems of neuroscience generally, not least of all addiction.

My first response upon reading the above was, "Of course it would be addictive." Food-seeking behavior has to be governed by some mechanism, just like drug-seeking behavior. Now, I can't say I'm familiar with much of the literature in this area (all caveats invoked), but it seems to me that there's no reason to assume there would be two separate motivation centers for the two types of behaviors. In fact, we know that some addicted to drugs (depending on degree of the addiction and other factors) will actually forgo behaviors which would otherwise further their survival, suggesting that one mechanism is getting repurposed.

A second thought is that even if addiction could be localized in one of the dopamine systems, that does not mean that it is necessarily the result of a medical abnormality. The neurons might be functioning exactly as it was designed to by evolution and still be yielding the end product of "addiction." So far as I know, methamphetamine made its global debut less than 100 years ago (no known direct plant sources); the human nervous system didn't evolve with meth being a factor. Likewise, food addiction could be a result of particular distortions in the food environment (and lifestyle) from evolutionary conditions.

Problem is, drug neuroscience would have a hard time dealing with such an explanation, since it seems set on finding causative correlations between individual drugs, individual brain regions, and individual behaviors.

Third: the biggest hole in this article is this notion of "volition." "Dopamine systems are disrupted by addictive drugs, from alcohol to methamphetamine, which hijack the control of volition and the quest for rewards." Are any drug nerds at Dosenation aware of neuroscientific definitions of volition? Sounds like they're trying to sneak free will in by the back door.