Author(s): Nikolic M; Cox SML; Jaworska N; Castellanos-Ryan N; Dagher A; Vitaro F; Brendgen M; Parent S; Boivin M; Côté S; Tremblay RE; Séguin JR; Leyton M;

Background: Adolescent alcohol use is the norm, but only some develop a substance use disorder. The increased risk might reflect heightened mesocorticolimbic responses to reward-related cues but results published to date have been inconsistent. Methods: Young social drinkers (age 18.5 ± 0.6 y.o. ...

Article GUID: 39725679

Author(s): Carter F; Cossette MP; Trujillo-Pisanty I; Pallikaras V; Breton YA; Conover K; Caplan J; Solis P; Voisard J; Yaksich A; Shizgal P;

Phasic dopamine activity is believed to both encode reward-prediction errors (RPEs) and to cause the adaptations that these errors engender. If so, a rat working for optogenetic stimulation of dopamine neurons will repeatedly update its policy and/or action values, thus iteratively increasing its ...

Article GUID: 38039083

Author(s): Albury AW; Bianco R; Gold BP; Penhune VB;

Predictability plays an important role in the experience of musical pleasure. By leveraging expectations, music induces pleasure through tension and surprise. However, musical predictions draw on both prior knowledge and immediate context. Similarly, musical pleasure, which has been shown to depend on predictability, may also vary relative to the individu ...

Article GUID: 38034280

Author(s): Firas Sedki

Food restriction augments drug seeking in abstinent rats. The underlying motivational mechanisms, however, remain unclear. We hypothesized that caloric restriction enhances the incentive value attributed to drug-associated cues and, in turn, augments drug seeking. Male rats were trained to lever-press for heroin, and then moved to the animal colony for a ...

Article GUID: 37714221

Author(s): Pallikaras V; Mac Cionnaith CE; Rosales VCF; Arvanitogiannis A; Pfaus JG;

Rationale: Exposure to rewards can alter behavioral reactivity to them. For example, stimulants sensitize locomotor activation, whereas sexual experience sensitizes copulatory behaviors. Moreover, rewards can cross-sensitize one another. Although stimulants are known to cross-sensitize locomotor effects, the evidence for cross-sensitization between stimul ...

Article GUID: 36544054

Author(s): Brown A; Chaudhri N;

Contexts associated with prior reinforcement can renew extinguished conditioned responding. The prelimbic (PL) and infralimbic (IL) cortices are thought to mediate the expression and suppression of conditioned responding, respectively. Evidence suggests that PL inputs to the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) drive the expression of cue-induced ...

Article GUID: 36373226

Author(s): Hart EE; Gardner MPH; Panayi MC; Kahnt T; Schoenbaum G;

Recording action potentials extracellularly during behavior has led to fundamental discoveries regarding neural function-hippocampal neurons respond to locations in space,1 motor cortex neurons encode movement direction,2 and dopamine neurons signal reward prediction errors3-observations undergirding current theories of cognition,4 movement,5 and learning ...

Article GUID: 36368324

Author(s): Lay BPP; Koya E; Hope BT; Esber GR; Iordanova MD;

Background: Adaptive behavior depends on the delicate and dynamic balance between acquisition and extinction memories. Disruption of this balance, particularly when the extinction of memory loses control over behavior, is the root of treatment failure of maladaptive behaviors such as substance abuse or anxiety disorders. Understanding this balance require ...

Article GUID: 36336498

Author(s): Shann Ménard

Oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (VP) are considered to be principal neurochemical substrates of bonding in monogamous species. We have reported previously that conditioning of a sexual partner preference in male rats resulted in conditioned activation of OT and VP neurons in hypothalamic paraventricular and supraoptc nuclei. Here we asked whether such condi ...

Article GUID: 36041295

Author(s): Pallikaras V; Shizgal P;

Major depressive disorder is a leading cause of disability and suicide worldwide. Consecutive rounds of conventional interventions are ineffective in a significant sub-group of patients whose disorder is classified as treatment-resistant depression. Significant progress in managing this severe form of depression has been achieved through the use of deep b ...

Article GUID: 36009115

Author(s): Gonzalo R Quintana

Although mechanisms of mate preference are thought to be relatively hard-wired, experience with appetitive and consummatory sexual reward has been shown to condition preferences for partner related cues and even objects that predict sexual reward. Here, we reviewed evidence from laboratory species and humans on sexually conditioned place, partner, and eja ...

Article GUID: 36012194