Medications similar to Ozempic appear to go beyond reducing hunger, also indicating the ability to decrease cravings for alcohol and other addictive substances, according to recent findings. Scientists are increasingly associating this effect with the lateral septum, an area of the brain that helps connect memories and environments with rewarding experiences, which represents significant value in understanding and combating addictions. Rich in GLP-1 receptors, this region may act as a crucial checkpoint between thinking about a reward and the urgency to seek it. The revelation could open new perspectives in the treatment of addiction and obesity.
How Ozempic Can Reduce Addiction
For many people, the idea of a tasty burger or a glass of cold beer evokes a vivid mental image and drives behavior.
This connection between thought and action has a clear function: to motivate us to achieve what is necessary for life.
However, for some individuals, this process may be flawed. Excessive preoccupation with these reward stimuli can lead to substance abuse disorders, including overeating that results in obesity and alcohol abuse.
Research dating back to the 1970s has already linked clear mental images to drug use.
Understanding this link between intense desire and consumption is fundamental to unraveling addiction. This understanding has been a challenge for neuroscience for decades, but the arrival of a new class of weight loss drugs may have provided the tool needed to understand it.
These new medications including Ozempic and Wegovy mimic the hormone GLP-1 to stimulate insulin release, slow digestion and intensify feelings of satiety. Known as GLP-1 agonists, they were initially used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes as they help control blood sugar.
As a notable side effect, people using these medications also lost a lot of weight, in some cases almost as much as would be expected from bariatric surgery.
There is, however, another less publicized effect. Human studies show that GLP-1 agonists reduce alcohol consumption. Preclinical animal research suggests that these medications also decrease the use of cocaine, amphetamines, opiates, and nicotine.
Learn more: When to stop or reduce Ozempic and Mounjaro? First international consensus defines rules
These drugs are transforming the way we understand the brain’s reward system. They could also usher in new treatment options for obesity, alcohol dependence and the use of other addictive substances.
Brain mechanisms in reward regulation
We already have a reasonable understanding of the brain’s “reward circuits”, associated with regions that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine.
These brain parts the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc) have been the subject of reward research for decades. They are the most obvious candidate regions to search for a mechanism of action of GLP-1 in the brain. However, they lack a significant density of receptors for GLP-1 and are unlikely to be the direct mechanism.
It is therefore necessary to consider other brain regions to understand the anticompulsive effect of GLP-1 medications.
One jump “prior” to the dopamine-producing parts of the brain is a region called the lateral septum. This brain structure has historically been implicated in emotional regulation.
More on this story: Amy Winehouse’s mother shares memories of her daughter and the challenges of addiction 15 years later
In 1953, pioneering behavioral researchers Joseph Brady and Walle Nauta coined the term “septal rage” when animals with damage to the lateral septum demonstrated increased aggression, while direct stimulation of this brain region reduced aggression.
Much more recent work has positioned the lateral septum at the center of a neural connectivity network. This has reshaped the way we think about its role.
Although a connection between the lateral septum and another region called the hypothalamus is likely responsible for septal fury, the lateral septum connects with many other regions with various functions.
The lateral septum as the brain control center for reward
The lateral septum receives much of its main input from a brain region called the hippocampus.
On the same topic: International consensus updates the use of Ozempic and Mounjaro for obesity and comprehensive care
This region is well known as the place that allows us to form long-term “episodic memories.” One famous case of hippocampal damage, that of Henry Molaison (patient HM), prevented him from forming new memories after his epilepsy surgery. He lived, effectively, without a past, in a permanent present.
The hippocampus also contains the remarkable “place cell” neurons that fire corresponding to a person’s thoughts about their position in space and, as recent research has shown, in time.
This information about “where and when I am” is forwarded to the lateral septum. Important research has recently demonstrated that the lateral septum also contains place cells, but these cells respond strongly to rewards. They effectively add “what’s good about this place” to the “where and when I am” information coming from the hippocampus.
Critically, the lateral septum shares this information with the dopamine-producing regions that we would normally associate with reward.
Neuroscientists now consider the lateral septum to be the brain region that allows us to “think about” rewards—our conscious awareness of them—and communicates with the machinery in the brain’s reward system that produces dopamine to make us feel good about them.
Recent research reinforces the role of the lateral septum
There is one final reason to suspect the lateral septum as the mechanism behind the anti-bingeing effect of GLP-1 agonists. It is fully loaded with GLP-1 receptors.
Emerging research points to this as the mechanism. Activating GLP-1 directly in the lateral septum has recently been shown to reduce food consumption in mice. Earlier this year, another study showed the same for alcohol consumption.
More on this story: New global guidelines change the use of Ozempic and Mounjaro for obesity
Recent studies have indicated that GLP-1-based medications decrease a type of activity in the lateral septum that may prevent its effective communication with other brain regions.
These discoveries are reshaping our understanding of how the brain processes rewards and have placed the focus firmly on the lateral septum as the home of intense desires.