this study has examined the functional importance of nucleus accumbens (nac)-ventral tegmental area (vta) interactions. as it is known, this interaction is important in associative reward processes. under urethane anesthesia, extracellular single unit recordings of the shell sub-region of the nucleus accumbens (nacsh) neurons were employed to determine the functional contributions of the vta to...

In three experiments we examined the effect of bilateral excitotoxic lesions of the nucleus accumbens core or shell subregions on instrumental performance, outcome devaluation, degradation of the instrumental contingency, Pavlovian conditioning, and Pavlovian-instrumental transfer. Rats were food deprived and trained to press two levers, one delivering food pellets and the other a sucrose solut...

BACKGROUND GABAergic signals to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) shell arise from predominantly subcortical sources whereas glutamatergic signals arise mainly from cortical-related sources. Here we contrasted GABAergic and glutamatergic generation of hedonics versus motivation processes, as a proxy for comparing subcortical and cortical controls of emotion. Local disruptions of either signals in med...

Amphetamine microinjection into the nucleus accumbens shell enhanced the ability of a Pavlovian reward cue to trigger increased instrumental performance for sucrose reward in a pure conditioned incentive paradigm. Rats were first trained to press one of two levers to obtain sucrose pellets. They were separately conditioned to associate a Pavlovian cue (30 sec light) with free sucrose pellets. O...

BACKGROUND Addictive drugs lead to reinforcing properties by increasing dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, which is composed of a core and shell regions. Neurons in the nucleus accumbens are divided into 2 subtypes based on the differential gene expression of the dopamine D₁ receptors and D₂ receptors. METHODS In the present study, we investigated the role of D₂ receptors in the nucleus accum...

Previous behavioral studies have indicated that the nucleus accumbens (NAc) shell of a male rat is involved in its sexual behavior; however, no previous studies have investigated neuronal activities in the male rat NAc shell during sexual behavior. To investigate this issue, we recorded single unit activities in the NAc shell of male rats during sexual behavior. Of 123 NAc shell neurons studied...

Dopamine (DA) is one of the main catecholamines in the brain and is crucial for movement coordination, endocrine function, reward, mood, memory and emotions. The dopaminergic system is the primary therapeutic target in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD), drug addiction and schizophrenia. Notwithstanding, dysfunction of central dopaminergic neurotransmission has also been associated to de...