LEP and Anxiety: Leptin signaling in the amygdaloid complex itself and innervating midbrain dopaminergic neurons interacts with mesolimbic reward pathways (Coccurello & Maccarrone, 2018; Fernandes et al., 2015), modulates anxiety-related behaviors (Liu, Perez, Zhang, Lodge, & Lu, 2011) and conditioned taste aversion (Han, Yan, Luo, Liu, & Wang, 2003) in rodents.