Selective presynaptic enhancement of the prefrontal cortex to nucleus accumbens pathway by cocaine

Selective presynaptic enhancement of the prefrontal cortex to nucleus accumbens pathway by cocaine.

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) regulates motivated behavior by, in part, processing excitatory synaptic projections from several brain regions. Among these regions, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and basolateral amygdala, convey executive control and affective states, respectively. Whereas glutamatergic synaptic transmission within the NAc has been recognized as a primary cellular target for cocaine ...

Involvement of Dopamine in the Nucleus Accumbens and Prefrontal Cortex in Cocaine-associative Learning

Molecular changes in the medial prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens are associated with blocking the behavioral sensitization to cocaine

Previous studies have demonstrated that cocaine-induced behavioral sensitization is associated with persistent functional and structural alterations in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and nucleus accumbens (NAc); however, the molecular mechanisms underlying these changes have not been elucidated. In this study, the behavioral sensitization to cocaine was established in Sprague Dawley rats a...

Infralimbic prefrontal cortex interacts with nucleus accumbens shell to unmask expression of outcome-selective Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer.

Although several studies have examined the subcortical circuitry underlying Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT), the role of medial prefrontal cortex in this behavior is largely unknown. Elucidating the cortical contributions to PIT will be key for understanding how reward-paired cues control behavior in both adaptive and maladaptive context (i.e., addiction). Here we use bilateral lesions...

The contribution of the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and prefrontal cortex to emotion and motivated behaviour

Emotion and motivation depend on the assessment of the value of environmental stimuli. Multiple representations of stimulus value are created in the brain by Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning procedures. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) appears necessary for a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus (CS) to gain access to the current value of the specific unconditioned stimulus (US) that it predicts...