Topic: incentive salience

The mesolimbic dopamine system is believed to regulate both reinforcement learning and motivation to obtain rewards. A central question is how the mesolimbic dopamine system influences these distinct functions. A classical neural circuit model proposes a two-component system in which dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens core encodes prediction error signals to regulate reinforcement learning while dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens shell signals incentive salience and promotes motivated responses. Here we record bulk calcium dynamics in projection-specific ventral tegmental area (V

Aims: Sign-tracking (ST) behavior is a phenotype characterized by attraction to a reward-associated stimulus due to incentive salience attribution and it’s considered an endophenotype of vulnerability to drug addiction. Such phenotype is dependent on Dopamine (DA) transmission within the Nucleus Accumbens core (NACc), as DA suppression prevents both its development and expression. However, previous studies suggested the hypothesis that ST behavior can be dependent on different neural mechanisms in two inbred strains of C57BL/6J (C57) and DBA/2J (DBA) mice, which have known differences in their

Cue reactivity is an important predictor of addiction and relapse. However, it is unclear to what degree it is determined by a trait-like propensity to attribute incentive salience to cues. Animal studies have uncovered that individual variation in such a trait-like propensity expressed behaviorally as “sign-tracking” (ST) is associated with addiction-relevant behavioral and neurobiological features. The current study is first to examine the association between ST and cue reactivity in regular electronic cigarette (ECIG) users. Thirty-seven moderately dependent ECIG users (20 females) were cha