Hippocampus VTA Amygdala

Recent evidence has emerged supporting a role for the cholinergic system in schizophrenia, including the potential of α7 modulators as a treatment strategy. However, preclinical studies to date have relied on studies in normal systems rather than on a validated developmental model of schizophrenia. Furthermore, there have been only few studies on whether orthosteric and allosteric modulators have differential impacts in such models. Thus, we investigated the effects of α7 agonists and positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) on dopamine (DA) neuron activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in the methylazoxymethanol acetate (MAM) developmental disruption model of schizophrenia...

Coffee and nicotine consumption are frequently combined, indicating possible intensifying effect of caffeine on smoking behavior, although neurobiological background of this phenomenon remains unknown. We aimed at determining the effect of caffeine and nicotine, applied separately or simultaneously, on activation of six structures of the brain reward system: nucleus accumbens (NAc), ventral tegmental area (VTA), amygdala (Amg), hippocampus (Hip), medial prefrontal cortex (mPfr) and dorsal striatum (CdP) in the adult male Wistar rats...

Recent research indicates that the hypothalamic neuropeptide hormone oxytocin is a key central nervous system factor in the regulation of food intake and weight. However, the mechanisms underlying the anorexigenic effects of oxytocin in humans are unknown and critical to study to consider oxytocin as a neurohormonal weight loss treatment. We performed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study with single-dose intranasal oxytocin (24 IU) in ten overweight or obese, otherwise healthy men...

There is ample evidence that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is based on reduced serotonergic function. Replicated bidirectional selection for thermoregulatory nest-building behavior in the laboratory house mouse (Mus musculus) resulted in compulsive-like, non-compulsive-like and randomly bred control mice that represent a non-induced animal model of OCD. The present study aimed at investigating the neurochemical patterns in specific brain regions of compulsive-like (HA) versus non-compulsive-like (LA) and normal (CA) mice...

Cognitive emotion regulation (CER) is a critical human ability to face aversive emotional stimuli in a flexible way, via recruitment of specific prefrontal brain circuits. Animal research reveals a central role of ventral striatum in emotional behavior, for both aversive conditioning, with striatum signaling aversive prediction errors (aPE), and for integrating competing influences of distinct striatal inputs from regions such as the prefrontal cortex (PFC), amygdala, hippocampus and ventral tegmental area (VTA)...

Nucleus accumbens (NAcc) has been implicated in several psychiatric disorders such as treatment resistant depression (TRD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and has been an ongoing experimental target for deep brain stimulation (DBS) in both rats and humans. In order to translate basic scientific results from rodents to the human setting a large animal model is needed to thoroughly study the effect of such therapeutic interventions. The aim of the study was, accordingly, to describe the basic anatomy of the Göttingen minipig NAcc and its retrograde connections...

Chronic morphine administration induces neural plasticity followed by withdraw. And clinic observation indicates that obvious cognitive deficits are found during withdrawal. However, current neural substrates that regulate dysfunction in withdrawal are unknown. In our studies, chronic morphine administration was used to induce the spontaneous withdrawal model in rats. A series of cognitive abilities was tested to explore brain function. To further evaluate the neural substrates of dysfunction, Manganese-enhanced MRI(MEMRI) was used to map the dysfunctional regions in vivo...

Several studies suggest that prenatal ethanol exposure (PEE) facilitates ethanol intake. Opioid peptides play a main role in ethanol reinforcement during infancy and adulthood. However, PEE effects upon motor responsiveness elicited by an ethanol challenge and the participation of opioids in these actions remain to be understood. This work assessed the susceptibility of adolescent rats to prenatal and/or postnatal ethanol exposure in terms of behavioral responses, as well as alcohol effects on Met-enk expression in brain areas related to drug reinforcement...

The mesocorticolimbic circuit projects to the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, and nucleus accumbens, among others, and it originates in the dopaminergic neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA). The VTA receives glutamatergic inputs from the prefrontal cortex and several subcortical regions. The glutamate released activates dopaminergic neurons and its action depends on the activation of ionotropic and metabotropic glutamate receptors. VTA dopaminergic neurons release dopamine (DA) from axon terminals in the innervated regions and somatodendritically in the VTA itself...

Hypothalamic neural circuits are recognised as primary sites of the neuromodulator effect of homeostatic food intake, whereas changes in ventral tegmental area (VTA), hippocampus and amygdala have been implicated in the hedonic, cognitive and emotional aspects of eating. Here, we discuss synaptic transmission and plasticity within brain circuits governing appetite and food intake behaviour, focusing on the metabolic hormones ghrelin and leptin. We discuss functional changes within these circuitries and critically assess the applicability of electrophysiological measurements using in vitro multielectrode array (MEA) systems to identify novel appetite modulators...

RATIONALE: Adolescence is a period of high vulnerability to drugs of abuse and alterations of the proper developmental trajectory via psychostimulant exposure might change the physiological brain homeostasis. OBJECTIVE: By microdissection of brain areas via punching, we investigated whether repeated exposure to cocaine during adolescence (from postnatal day 28 [PND28] to PND42) has altered fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) messenger RNA (mRNA) levels in selected brain subregions critical for the action of cocaine...

The experience of early life stress can trigger complex neurochemical cascades that influence emotional and addictive behaviors later in life in both adolescents and adults. Recent evidence suggests that excessive alcohol drinking and drug-seeking behavior, in general, are co-morbid with depressive-like behavior. Both behaviors are reported in humans exposed to early life adversity, and are prominent features recapitulated in animal models of early life stress (ELS) exposure. Currently, little is known about whether or how ELS modulates reward system nuclei...

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a powerful concept underlying forms of associative learning governed by the use of a scalar reward signal, with learning taking place if expectations are violated. RL may be assessed using model-based and model-free approaches. Model-based reinforcement learning involves the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). The model-free system involves the pedunculopontine-tegmental nucleus (PPTgN), the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the ventral striatum (VS)...

Reactivation of consolidated memory initiates a memory reconsolidation process, during which the reactivated memory is susceptible to strengthening, weakening or updating. Therefore, effective interference with the memory reconsolidation process is expected to be an important treatment for drug addiction. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) has been well recognized as a pathway component that can prevent drug relapse, although the mechanism underlying this function is poorly understood. We aimed to clarify the regulatory role of the NAc in the cocaine memory reconsolidation process, by examining the effect of applying different pharmacological interventions to the NAc on Zif 268 and Fos B expression in the entire reward circuit after cocaine memory reactivation...

UNLABELLED: In the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a subpopulation of dopamine neurons express vesicular glutamate transporter 2 and make glutamatergic connections to nucleus accumbens (NAc) and olfactory tubercle (OT) neurons. However, their glutamatergic connections across the forebrain have not been explored systematically. To visualize dopamine neuron forebrain projections and to enable photostimulation of their axons independent of transmitter status, we virally transfected VTA neurons with channelrhodopsin-2 fused to enhanced yellow fluorescent protein (ChR2-EYFP) and used DAT(IREScre) mice to restrict expression to dopamine neurons...

BACKGROUND: This study examined the effect of insulin sensitivity on the responsiveness of appetite regulatory brain regions to visual food cues. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nineteen participants diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) were divided into insulin-sensitive (n=8) and insulin-resistant (n=11) groups based on the homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA2-IR). Subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while viewing food pictures following water or dextrose consumption...

Global cerebral ischemia in rodents, which mimics cardiac arrest in humans, is associated with a surge in endocannabinoids and increased transmission of dopamine and glutamate leading to excitotoxic cell death. The current study assessed the role of CB1 receptor activation at the moment of an ischemic insult on ensuing regulation of stress and reward signaling molecules, neuronal injury and anxiety-like behavior. Male Wistar rats were separated into 4 groups (n=10/group); sham and ischemic rats administered the CB1 endocannabinoid receptor antagonist AM251 (2mg/kg, i...

Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with extensive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons originating in the substantia nigra pars compacta, but neuronal loss is also found in the ventral tegmental area (VTA). The VTA projects to areas involved in cognitive and emotional processes, including hippocampus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex, and has thus been proposed to play a role in emotional memory impairments in PD. Since the formation of α-synuclein inclusions throughout the central nervous system is a pathological hallmark of PD, we studied the progressive effects of α-synuclein overexpression in the VTA on motor functions, emotional behaviour and emotional memory...

The limbic dopaminergic reward system is the main target of morphine-like drugs which begins from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and sends its dopaminergic projections to the nucleus accumbens (NAc), amygdala, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Cannabinoid receptors exist in afferent neurons from these areas to the NAc and can modulate glutamate synaptic transmission in the NAc. Cannabinoids can interact with the opiate system in reward-related behaviors; nevertheless these systems' interaction in extinction duration and reinstatement has not been shown...

Direct actions of nicotine in the CNS appear to be essential for its reinforcing properties. However, activation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) on afferent sensory nerve fibers is an important component of addiction to, and withdrawal from, cigarette smoking. The aim of the present study was to identify the neuroanatomical substrates activated by the peripheral actions of nicotine and to determine whether these sites overlap brain structures stimulated by direct actions of nicotine. Mouse brains were examined by immunohistochemistry for c-Fos protein after intraperitoneal injection of either nicotine hydrogen tartrate salt (NIC; 30 and 40 μg/kg) or nicotine pyrrolidine methiodide (NIC-PM; 20 and 30 μg/kg)...