TARGETING THE GUT–BRAIN AXIS TO MODULATE FOOD ADDICTION–LIKE BEHAVIOUR: EFFECTS OF LACTULOSE AND RHAMNOSE

Food addiction is characterized by compulsive intake of highly palatable foods and shares behavioural and neurobiological features with substance use disorders. Increasing evidence suggests that the gut–brain axis plays a critical role in shaping individual vulnerability to addiction-like behaviours, with gut microbiota composition influencing reward processing, stress responsivity, and cognitive control. Alterations in specific microbial taxa have been associated with either susceptibility or resilience to addictive-like eating patterns.
This project aims to establish a robust mouse model of food addiction using operant self-administration paradigms designed to capture key behavioural dimensions, including persistence of responding, motivation, and compulsivity. Following the establishment of addiction-like behaviour, the study assesses whether post-phenotype administration of the prebiotics lactulose and rhamnose can influence addiction-like eating behaviour. These non-digestible carbohydrates may be used as experimental tools to modulate gut microbiota composition and to examine their impact on behavioural outcomes.
Behavioural measures are analysed to determine changes in motivation and compulsivity associated with microbiota modulation. By adopting a treatment-oriented, post-phenotype approach, this study seeks to move beyond preventive models and address a critical gap in current preclinical research. Overall, this work provides new advances to understand mechanistic insight into gut–brain interactions in food addiction and to explore microbiota-targeted experimental approaches as a potential strategy to modify addiction-like eating behaviour.