Overview
- The Nature Medicine report details a small Penn study that directly recorded a delta–theta oscillation in the nucleus accumbens preceding severe food preoccupation.
- In two participants, responsive deep-brain stimulation delivered to the nucleus accumbens reduced the low-frequency signal and coincided with fewer episodes.
- In a third participant taking tirzepatide, the craving-linked signal and reported food preoccupation were initially absent but reappeared about five months later despite the maximum dose.
- The observations provide the first direct intracranial evidence of how a GLP-1/GIP drug may modulate human reward-circuit activity tied to dysregulated eating.
- Researchers stress the findings are preliminary and not generalizable, proposing the oscillation as a candidate biomarker and calling for controlled trials and drug designs targeting reward circuitry.