Review
Biology
Kate M. Wassum
Summary: Adaptive reward-related decision making requires accurate consideration of the specific outcome and current desirability of each option. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) collaborate to encode and use detailed reward memories, supporting prediction and inference in decision making. BLA projections to lateral OFC encode outcome-specific reward memories, while projections to medial OFC regulate the use of these memories for reward pursuit decisions.
Article
Neurosciences
Caroline Garceau, Justine Marsault, Mike J. F. Robinson, Anne-Noel Samaha
Summary: Across both sexes, there are similar cue-triggered increases in reward seeking behaviors, and thirst satiation suppresses both water-seeking behavior and the anticipation of water reward. The activity of mGlu(2/3) receptors plays a regulatory role in cue-triggered increases in reward seeking.
PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Caroline Garceau, Anne-Noel Samaha, Thomas Cordahi, Alice Servonnet, Shaun Yon-Seng Khoo
Summary: Reward-associated cues can trigger incentive motivation for reward via Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer, with glutamate signaling in the basolateral amygdala playing a role in modulating cue-triggered increases in motivation. The study showed that metabotropic group II glutamate receptors in the BLA mediate cue-triggered potentiation of incentive motivation for reward, suppressing both instrumental pursuit of the reward and anticipatory approach behavior.
PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Kurt M. Fraser, Patricia H. Janak
Summary: Reward-seeking is driven by ambiguous cues. Occasion setters are needed to resolve the ambiguity of reward-paired cues. This study investigated the role of the basolateral amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in occasion setting and found that neural activity in these regions is necessary for updating and resolving ambiguity in the environment to promote cue-driven reward-seeking.
PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Nicole L. Jenni, Nicola Symonds, Stan B. Floresco
Summary: This series of experiments examined the role of the medial subregion of the orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) in Pavlovian conditioned approach, conditioned reinforcement, extinction, and cue-induced reinstatement of food-seeking behavior. The results revealed that mOFC inactivation had varied effects on these behaviors.
PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Sara Garofalo, Simone Battaglia, Francesca Starita, Giuseppe di Pellegrino
Summary: This study aimed to investigate the involvement of the lateral prefrontal cortex in human cue-guided choices, revealing a reduction in outcome-specific transfer with cathodal stimulation but no impact on general transfer, supporting the presence of at least two possible neural pathways underlying cue-guided choices.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Thorsten Kahnt, Geoffrey Schoenbaum
Summary: Expectations can be derived from direct experience or mental inference, with studies showing that the orbitofrontal cortex plays a critical role in behavior based on inferred outcomes.
BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Nikolas Perentos, Marino Krstulovic, A. Jennifer Morton
Summary: Sheep, as a practical large animal species, were used for in vivo brain function studies in naturalistic settings. The experiments demonstrated that sheep are excellent for longitudinal studies requiring large-brained mammals and/or large-scale recordings across distributed neuronal networks. This suggests that sheep can be safely used for studying neural encoding of decision-making and spatial-mapping in naturalistic environments, as well as the neural basis of intra- and inter-species social interactions.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Shir Sivroni, Hadas E. Sloin, Eran Stark
Summary: This article describes an auditory discrimination paradigm for studying response priming in freely moving mice. The study found that all mice tested showed a priming effect in success rate on the task. Additionally, the results suggest a cognitive mechanism based on differential interference underlying the priming phenomenon.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Mandy Rita LeCocq, Sophie Sun, Nadia Chaudhri
Summary: This study examines the reinstatement of conditioned responding elicited by an appetitive conditioned stimulus (CS) through re-exposure to an unconditioned stimulus (US) and finds that the reinstatement is driven by an excitatory association formed between the US and the context in which the US was ingested.
BEHAVIOURAL BRAIN RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Sabine Frank-Podlech, Poppy Watson, Aukje A. C. Verhoeven, Sophia Stegmaier, Hubert Preissl, Sanne de Wit
Summary: Food choices are influenced by current mindset, with supporting a health mindset potentially improving choices. Inducing health vs. palatability mindsets and presenting food-context stimuli showed mixed effects, with mindset triggers proving more robust in influencing choices towards healthier or unhealthier options. Interestingly, these effects did not impact the overall Pavlovian cues, demonstrating the potential to bias food choices towards health even in an obesogenic environment.
Article
Biology
Junshi Lu, Lu Luo, Qian Wang, Fang Fang, Nihong Chen
Summary: The recall of learned temporal sequences through a visual cue is an important form of neural plasticity, observed in awake human visual cortex with neural reactivation in the downstream receptive field. After repeated exposure to a moving dot, a flash of the dot triggers neural reactivation in the receptive field along the motion path, with faster estimated traveling speed than real motion activation.
SCIENCE CHINA-LIFE SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Gabriella Margetts-Smith, Anastasia I. Macnaghten, Leonie S. Brebner, Joseph J. Ziminski, Meike C. Sieburg, Jeffrey W. Grimm, Hans S. Crombag, Eisuke Koya
Summary: Acute exposure to environmental enrichment reduces the impact of motivationally relevant stimuli on sucrose-seeking behavior by decreasing specific brain region activity, while chronic exposure does not have the same effect. This highlights the significant impact of environmental enrichment on reward-seeking behavior in animals.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Artur Schneider, Christian Zimmermann, Mansour Alyahyay, Florian Steenbergen, Thomas Brox, Ilka Diester
Summary: This study presents a versatile framework for capturing the 3D motion of freely definable body points and reveals multiplexing of information in the motor cortex neurons of freely moving rats. The framework allows for analysis of specific behaviors of interest by removing the influence of certain body movements.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Koki Mimura, Yuji Nagai, Ken-ichi Inoue, Jumpei Matsumoto, Yukiko Hori, Chika Sato, Kei Kimura, Takashi Okauchi, Toshiyuki Hirabayashi, Hisao Nishijo, Noriaki Yahata, Masahiko Takada, Tetsuya Suhara, Makoto Higuchi, Takafumi Minamimoto
Summary: The researchers successfully introduced designer receptors activated by designer drugs (DREADDs) technology into common marmosets, allowing them to observe neuronal pathways under natural conditions. The results, confirmed through tracer imaging and immunohistochemistry, demonstrate the effectiveness of the experiment.