Drug addiction represents a dramatic dysregulation of motivational circuits that is caused by
a combination of exaggerated incentive salience and habit formation, reward deficits and …

Recombinant viruses are the workhorse of modern neuroscience. Whether one would like to
understand a neuron's morphology, natural activity patterns, molecular composition …

Cells use ubiquitin to mark proteins for proteasomal degradation. Although the proteasome
also eliminates proteins that are not ubiquitinated, how this occurs mechanistically is …

Investigations of long-term changes in brain structure and function that accompany chronic
exposure to drugs of abuse suggest that alterations in gene regulation contribute …

LTP and LTD, the long-term potentiation and depression of excitatory synaptic transmission,
are widespread phenomena expressed at possibly every excitatory synapse in the …

Experiences, whether they be learning in a classroom, a stressful event, or ingestion of a
psychoactive substance, impact the brain by modifying the activity and organization of …

The nucleus accumbens is a key mediator of cocaine reward, but the distinct roles of the two
subpopulations of nucleus accumbens projection neurons, those expressing dopamine D1 …

The ventral pallidum (VP) plays a critical role in the processing and execution of motivated
behaviors. Yet this brain region is often overlooked in published discussions of the …

Addiction is a state of compulsive drug use; despite treatment and other attempts to control
drug taking, addiction tends to persist. Clinical and laboratory observations have converged …

Studies of human addicts and behavioural studies in rodent models of addiction indicate that
key behavioural abnormalities associated with addiction are extremely long lived. So …