The past decade has witnessed exponentially growing interest in the lateral habenula (LHb)
owing to new discoveries relating to its critical role in regulating negatively motivated …

Decades of research has identified the brain areas that are involved in fear, fear extinction,
anxiety and related defensive behaviours. Newly developed genetic and viral tools …

Rewards are crucial objects that induce learning, approach behavior, choices, and
emotions. Whereas emotions are difficult to investigate in animals, the learning function is …

Dopamine neurons facilitate learning by calculating reward prediction error, or the difference
between expected and actual reward. Despite two decades of research, it remains unclear …

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is a heterogeneous brain structure that serves a central
role in motivation and reward processing. Abnormalities in the function of VTA dopamine …

The lamprey belongs to the phylogenetically oldest group of vertebrates that diverged from
the mammalian evolutionary line 560 million years ago. A comparison between the lamprey …

Midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons are proposed to signal reward prediction error (RPE), a
fundamental parameter in associative learning models. This RPE hypothesis provides a …

Successful goal-directed behavior requires not only correct action selection, planning, and
execution but also the ability to flexibly adapt behavior when performance problems occur or …

Neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) regulate the rewarding actions of
nicotine contained in tobacco that establish and maintain the smoking habit. nAChRs also …

The brain reward circuit has a central role in reinforcing behaviors that are rewarding and
preventing behaviors that lead to punishment. Recent work has shown that the lateral …