central manipulation of dopamine receptors attenuates the orexigenic action of ghrelin objective recent evidence suggests that ghrelin a peptidic hormone stimulating food intake interacts with the dopamine signaling this interaction has been demonstrated to modulate several effects of ghrelin such as locomotor activity memory and food intake ghrelin increases dopamine levels in the shell of the nucleus accumbens stimulating food intake while ablation of the ghrelin receptor attenuates the hypophagia caused by the activation of dopamine receptor 2 however it is not known whether the orexigenic action of ghrelin is due to changes in central dopamine receptorsmaterials and methods we used spraguedawley rats injected with different dopamine receptor agonists antagonists and ghrelinresults we demonstrate that the specific central blockade of dopamine receptor 1 2 and 3 d1 d2 and d3 respectively reduces the orexigenic action of ghrelin similarly specific central stimulation either singly of dopamine receptor 1 or dopamine receptors 2 and 3 simultaneously causes a significant decrease in ghrelininduced food intake costimulation of all three receptors d1 d2 and d3 also led to a marked attenuation in ghrelininduced food intake importantly the reduction in ghrelininduced feeding was not caused by malaise or any type of behavioral alterationconclusion taken together these data indicate that dopamine receptors play an important role in acute stimulation of feeding behavior induced by central injection of ghrelin