Featured Paper of the Month – July 2018. Using knowledge of the structure of the world to infer value is at the heart of model-based reasoning and relies on a circuit that includes the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Some accounts link this to the representation of biological significance or value by neurons in OFC, while other models focus on the representation of… [Read More]
Featured Paper of the Month
Delta Rhythm Orchestrates the Neural Activity Underlying the Resting State BOLD Signal via Phase–amplitude Coupling.
Featured Paper of the Month – June 2018. Our brains always work, consciously or unconsciously. Functional connectivity MRI has identified so-called resting state brain networks (e.g. default mode network). Aberrant activity in such networks is implicated in neurological and psychiatric disorders. This work applies simultaneous electrophysiological recording and functional MRI to investigate the neurophysiological basis… [Read More]
Fentanyl-Induced Brain Hypoxia Triggers Brain Hyperglycemia and Biphasic Changes in Brain Temperature.
Featured Paper of the Month – May 2018. Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid used clinically to treat pain and as a general anesthetic. Recently, fentanyl has emerged as a recreational drug and its overdose has been linked to numerous deaths in the US. To better understand how fentanyl affects the brain, we used electrochemical… [Read More]
Lateral Preoptic Control of the Lateral Habenula through Convergent Glutamate and GABA Transmission.
Featured Paper of the Month – April 2018. The lateral habenula (LHb) is a brain structure that participates in cognitive and emotional processing and has been implicated in several mental disorders. Although one of the largest inputs to the LHb originates in the lateral preoptic area (LPO), little is known about how the LPO participates… [Read More]
Exogenous ghrelin administration increases alcohol self-administration and modulates brain functional activity in heavy-drinking alcohol-dependent individuals.
Featured Paper of the Month – March 2018. Understanding the neurobiological substrates of excessive alcohol consumption may substantially facilitate efforts to develop better treatments. The cross-talk between the gastrointestinal and central nervous systems, often referred to as the gut–brain axis, is a promising yet underexplored domain in this regard. Ghrelin is a hormone primarily produced… [Read More]
Bidirectional Modulation of Intrinsic Excitability in Rat Prelimbic Cortex Neuronal Ensembles and Non-Ensembles after Operant Learning
Featured Paper of the Month – February 2018. Learned associations between environmental stimuli and rewards drive learning and motivated behavior. These memories are thought to be encoded by alterations within specific patterns of sparsely distributed neurons called neuronal ensembles that are selectively activated by reward-predictive stimuli. Here we use the Fos promoter to identify strongly… [Read More]
High fat diet disrupts endoplasmic reticulum calcium homeostasis in the rat liver.
Featured Paper of the Month – January 2018. From the NIDA IRP Molecular Mechanisms of Cellular Stress and Inflammation Section The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is cellular organelle that performs critical functions such as the production and processing of proteins, lipids and drugs. The ER also serves as the primary storage site for calcium inside the cell. … [Read More]
Deletion of Type 2 Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Decreases Sensitivity to Cocaine Reward in Rats.
Featured Paper of the Month – December 2017. The etiology and pathophysiology of drug addiction are still not well understood. In this research paper, we show that genetic deletion of mGluR2, a presynaptic glutamate autoreceptor, decreases sensitivity to cocaine reward that causes a compensatory increase in cocaine intake and a decrease in relapse to cocaine-seeking… [Read More]
A relationship between the aldosterone-mineralocorticoid receptor pathway and alcohol drinking: preliminary translational findings across rats, monkeys and humans.
Featured Paper of the Month – November 2017
This paper describes three separate studies, conducted with non-human primates, rats, and humans, that investigated the potential contribution of the hormone aldosterone and its mineralocorticoid receptor to alcohol use disorder.
Compulsive Addiction-like Aggressive Behavior in Mice.
Featured Paper of the Month – October 2017
Golden, Sam A; Heins, Conor; Venniro, Marco; Caprioli, Daniele; Zhang, Michelle; Epstein, David H; Shaham, Yavin
Biol Psychiatry, 82 (4), pp. 239–248, 2017, ISSN: 1873-2402 (Electronic); 0006-3223 (Linking)
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