Dopamine acts at D2-NMDA receptor heteromers to control glutamatergic transmission and aversive learning.

Voluntary physical activity is a highly motivated behavior with important implications for physical and mental health, yet the neural and endocrine mechanisms underlying motivation to exercise remain ...

Neuropsychopharmacology - Sex-biased computations underlying differential set shift performance in mice

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Modifying behavior in response to changing environmental conditions is a crucial adaptive function. This capacity is exemplified when animals curtail pursuit of a valued outcome that risks being punis...

The Incentive Sensitization Theory (IST) of addiction posits that repeated intermittent exposure to potentially addictive drugs can sensitize brain mesolimbic dopamine systems. Those systems normally ...

The government’s plans to poach 100 US researchers might make good economic sense. But what about the existing community?

Neuropsychopharmacology - Disinhibition of ventral tegmental area during initial punishment learning causes enduring punishment insensitivity

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Here authors demonstrate how opposing trajectories of dopamine transmission underlie changes in drug seeking and taking over chronic drug use. Increased dopamine to drug cues elevates craving, whereas...

Depression in young patients is linked to difficulty in taking action to avoid something unpleasant, while the ability to withdraw and not act remains intact.

How does the brain learn to predict rewards? In this issue of Nature Neuroscience, Qian, Burrell et al. show that understanding how dopamine guides learning requires knowledge of how animals interpret...

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The medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) has been implicated in shaping decisions involving reward uncertainty, in part by using memories to infer future outcomes. This region is interconnected with oth...

Avoidance learning—learning to avoid bad outcomes—is an essential survival behavior. Dopamine signals are widely observed in response to aversive stim…

2025-07-13, Vancouver, BC