Topic: reward processing

Our everyday behaviours, such as physical activity, sleep, diet, meditation, and social connections, have a potent impact on our mental health and the health of our brain. BrainPark is working to harness this power by developing lifestyle-based interventions for mental health and investigating how they do and don’t change the brain, and for whom they are most effective. In this webinar, Dr Rebecca Segrave and Dr Chao Suo will discuss BrainPark’s approach to developing lifestyle-based interventions to help people get better control of compulsive behaviours, and the multi-modality neuroimaging a

Balancing exploration and exploitation is crucial for navigating unpredictable, ever-changing environments. Exploitation stabilizes decision-making to maximize rewards while exploration introduces variability, destabilizing behavior to search for new opportunities. Previous studies have implicated the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in exploratory decision-making, but also in tracking important decision-making variables like reward. Critically, the relationship between dACC and these variables remains ambiguous because neither link has been tested causally. Here, we stimulated dACC dur

Rewards are a broad category of stimuli inducing approach behavior to aid survival. Extensive evidence from animal research has shown that wanting (the motivation to pursue a reward) and liking (the pleasure associated with its consumption) are mostly regulated by dopaminergic and opioidergic activity in dedicated brain areas. However, less is known about the neuroanatomy of dopaminergic and opioidergic regulation of reward processing in humans, especially when considering different types of rewards (i.e., social and non-social). To fill this gap of knowledge, we combined dopaminergic and opio

Antidepressant drugs are beneficial for many of the symptoms of depression, but impairments in reward and motivation often remain or become worse. The effort-based foraging (EBF) and the effort-for-reward (EfR) tasks target different aspects of reward processing and motivation. This study investigated the effects of different antidepressants on effort-related decision-making (EfR) and motivation to engage with natural foraging (EBF). 2 cohorts of 16 and 24 C57bl/6J male mice were used in fully randomised, counterbalanced within-subject designs for acute pharmacological studies (escitalopram, v

Empathy is vital in interpersonal and societal interactions and serves as an emotional bridge fostering pro-social, including helping behavior. The process of offering help unfolds through distinct stages, starting with empathetic responses to another individual's negative emotional state, progressing to the decision to provide assistance, and culminating in the social rewards that follow such acts. Despite years of research in humans, the neural networks recruited in different stages of prosocial behavior still remain elusive. In this study, we established single photon emission computerized

Deficits in reward processing are a characteristic symptomatic dimension of psychiatric diseases such as major depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. These deficits have been linked to the dysfunction of the mesocorticolimbic dopamine transmission suggesting the existence of common underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. Numerous clinical studies have described a decrease in n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in subpopulations of patients suffering from psychiatric disorders (Conklin et al., 2010; Messamore and McNamara, 2016). Moreover, preclinical results from our laboratory

Dopamine transmission is involved in reward processing and motor control, and its impairment plays a central role in numerous neurological disorders. Despite its strong pathophysiological relevance, the molecular and structural organization of the dopaminergic synapse remains to be established. We used targeted labeling and fluorescence-activated sorting to purify striatal dopaminergic synaptosomes. Our data reveal the adhesion of dopaminergic varicosities to glutamatergic, GABAergic, or cholinergic synapses in tripartite structures we named “dopamine hub synapses.” We provide the proteome of

Rat sexual behavior is a natural reward behavior that offers the unique opportunity to control the timing of exposure for the first time. A certain level of sexual motivation is required to turn desire into approach, leading to copulation and ejaculation. A coordinated transition between these phases is essential for a successful completion of the cycle. Moreover, gaining sexual experience enables a more efficient sexual cycle by markedly improving the patterning of behavioral responses. The neural regulation of this behavior and the transitions between phases requires different neurons to con

In the quest for survival, animals constantly adapt their behaviours to environmental cues, internal states, and experiences. This process involves allocating cognitive resources in the brain to promote relevant behaviours while inhibiting others. Despite recent progress in understanding biological mechanisms behind behavioural prioritization, there is still a gap in comprehending neuronal and molecular mechanisms governing the capacity to rank and prioritize competing needs. The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT), produced in the paraventricular nucleus(PVN) and supraoptic nucleus(SON) of the hypoth

This study aimed to delve into the role of the brainstem nucleus incertus (NI) as a structure involved in stress-response generation and its interactions with the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a key component of the brain's reward system. By tracing neural pathways using a retrograde viral vector, the NI-originating innervation of the VTA was confirmed within the midbrain of Sprague-Dawley rats. Immunohistochemical staining revealed that only a small percentage of NI neurons containing the relaxin-3 neuropeptide also project to the VTA, suggesting specialization of the connectivity between the