{"id":243172,"date":"2026-08-25T17:02:40","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T22:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/meet-orexin-the-brain-chemical-behind-staying-motivated"},"modified":"2026-08-25T17:02:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T22:02:40","slug":"meet-orexin-the-brain-chemical-behind-staying-motivated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/meet-orexin-the-brain-chemical-behind-staying-motivated","title":{"rendered":"Meet Orexin, The Brain Chemical Behind Staying Motivated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/meet-orexin-the-brain-chemical-behind-staying-motivated.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Motivation (or a lack of it) shapes our lives in ways large and small every day: From changing careers to changing TV channels, we\u2019re guided by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/dopamine-doesnt-work-in-our-brains-quite-the-way-we-thought\">what motivates us<\/a> and what we find rewarding.<\/p>\n<p>In a new study published in <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.2520677123\"><em>PNAS<\/em><\/a>, researchers led by a team from Nagoya University in Japan have identified neurons that produce the chemical <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Orexin\">orexin<\/a> as playing an important role in food-reward motivation in rats.<\/p>\n<p>These neurons are located in the brain\u2019s hypothalamus and have previously been linked to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/alzheimer-s-disease-appears-to-attack-the-neurons-that-keep-us-awake-study-shows\">wakefulness<\/a>, energy expenditure, <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/nrn3837\">and indeed motivation<\/a>. The researchers behind this latest study wanted to look more closely at that link to motivation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Motivation (or a lack of it) shapes our lives in ways large and small every day: From changing careers to changing TV channels, we\u2019re guided by what motivates us and what we find rewarding. In a new study published in PNAS, researchers led by a team from Nagoya University in Japan have identified neurons that [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1506,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-food","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}