A model of emotional stress‐induced binge eating in female mice with no history of food restriction

Abstract

Overeating is a major contributing factor to obesity and related health complications. For women, in particular, negative emotions such as stress strongly influence eating behavior and bingeing episodes. Modeling this type of binge eating in rodents presents challenges: firstly, stress‐induced anorexia is commonly observed in rodents therefore a mild stressor is required in order to observe an orexigenic effect. Second, many studies report using calorie restriction to observe the required behavior; yet this does not necessarily reflect the human condition. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a model of emotional stress‐induced bingeing independent of caloric restriction. Female and male C57BL/6J mice were divided into ad libitum (n = 20 per sex) and food‐restricted (n = 20 per sex) groups which were both further split into a control group and a group exposed to frustration stress (n = 10 per group). All mice were provided intermittent access to a highly palatable food in 2 cycles. At the end of each cycle the stress group was subjected to a 15‐minute frustration episode where highly palatable food was within the home cage but inaccessible. Both groups were then given free access for 15 minutes. Frustrated female mice from the ad libitum displayed binge‐like behavior compared with controls (P = .0001). Notably, this behavior was absent in males. Ovariectomy had no impact on binge‐like behavior. Collectively, these data validate a novel model of emotional stress‐induced binge eating specific to female mice which does not require caloric restriction and is not driven by ovarian hormones.

Exploring women's experiences of treatment for binge eating disorder: Methylphenidate vs. cognitive behavioural therapy

“…BED is associated with a heightened response to stress (Anversa et al, 2020;Naish et al, 2019) and was one of the most commonly reported triggers of binge eating in our study. Despite only partial evidence for the association between BED and stress (Naish et al, 2019), in contrast to previous work, the stress in the current study was not experimentally induced.…”

The Psycho-Affective Roots of Obesity: Results from a French Study in the General Population

“…Indeed, while a decrease or suppression of food intake in response to stress and negative mood has been conceived as the natural, typical, distress response because of physiological changes that mimic satiety [ 8 ], it is now acknowledged that important individual differences modulate the way people intake food in the same conditions, with as many as 30 to 50% of people who report eating more during stressful periods [ 9 ]. Consistently with seminal descriptions of the psychological aspects of hyperphagia and obesity made in the 1950s by Bruch [ 10 ], Hamburger [ 11 ], and Stunkard [ 12 ], and as conceptualized in the Emotionally Driven Eating Model [ 6 , 13 , 14 ], some individuals appear to be susceptible to unhealthy shifts towards energy-dense and highly palatable (HP) food items when being emotional [ 15 , 16 , 17 ]. Both experimental and epidemiological studies on this issue have consistently identified overweight and obese people as being particularly prone to these shifts, and these findings are part of the conceptual framework of the recently proposed Clinical Obesity Maintenance Model [ 6 ].…”

A Framework for Developing Translationally Relevant Animal Models of Stress-Induced Changes in Eating Behavior

“…Potential effects of gonadal hormones on food intake have been used to justify the exclusion of females ( 57). Yet, studies that explicitly examined stress-induced feeding behaviors in female rodents across the estrous cycle do not support the idea that these fluctuations are a major source of variability (41,(58)(59)(60). However, there are some contexts when differences in the levels of gonadal hormones exert a strong effect on food intake, such as a severe fast (61) or adolescent stress (62).…”