The interaction of drugs with biologic targets is a critical area of research, particularly for the
development of medications to treat substance use disorders. In addition to understanding …

Until recently, most modern neuroscience research on addiction using animal models did
not incorporate manipulations of social factors. Social factors play a critical role in human …

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) plays an important role in motivation and reward processing.
Recent studies suggest that different NAc subnuclei differentially contribute to reward …

Social play behavior is a characteristic, vigorous form of social interaction in young
mammals. It is highly rewarding and thought to be of major importance for social and …

Central oxytocin (OT) promotes feeding termination in response to homeostatic challenges,
such as excessive stomach distension, salt loading and toxicity. OT has also been proposed …

Social hierarchies exert a powerful influence on behavior, but the neurobiological
mechanisms that detect and regulate hierarchical interactions are not well understood …

Drug addiction is a multifactorial disorder resulting from the complex interaction between
biological, environmental and drug-induced effects. Generally, stress is a well-known risk …

Surgical treatment for psychiatric disorders has been revitalized for the past ten years after
deep brain stimulation (DBS) had shown its efficacy for the treatment of neurological …

We previously developed rat experimental models based on the conditioned place
preference (CPP) paradigm in which only four 15-min episodes of dyadic social interaction …

Individuals suffering from substance use disorders often show severely impaired social
interaction, preferring drugs of abuse to the contact with others. Their impaired social …