The direct connections from the cortex to the subthalamic nucleus (STN), the socalled hyperdirect pathway, is known for the cortical motor areas and plays a top– down executive control on basal ganglia (BG). However, little was known regarding the projections onto the STN from anterior and ventral prefrontal regions involved inmore integrated functions such as decision making or reward related ...

Objective(s): Behavioral and neuroimaging studies have shown that transcranial direct current stimulation, as a non-invasive neuromodulatory technique, beyond regional effects can modify functionally interconnected remote cortical and subcortical areas. In this study, we hypothesized that the induced changes in cortical excitability following the application of cathodal or anodal tDCS over the ...

Using environmental cues for the prediction of future events is essential for survival. Such cue-outcome associations are thought to depend on mesolimbic circuitry involving the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and prefrontal cortex (PFC). Several studies have identified roles for both NAc and PFC in the expression of stable goal-directed behaviors, but much remains unknown about their roles during lear...

Neuronal activity observed in response to trial outcome is hypothesized to drive learning and performance adjustment. The study by Histed et al. in this issue of Neuron observes persistent outcome-related neuronal activity lasting until the subsequent trial in both prefrontal cortex and the caudate nucleus which is correlated with behavioral adjustment.

Compared to lean subjects, obese men have less activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area implicated in the inhibition of inappropriate behavior, satiety, and meal termination. Whether this deficit precedes weight gain or is an acquired feature of obesity remains unknown. An adult animal model of obesity may provide insight to this question since brain imaging can be perform...

Animal research and human brain imaging findings suggest that reward processing involves distinct anticipation and outcome phases. Error terms in popular models of reward learning (such as the temporal difference [TD] model) do not distinguish between the updating of expectations in response to reward cues and outcomes. Thus, correlating a single error term with neural activation assumes recrui...

Anticipated reward magnitude and probability comprise dual components of expected value (EV), a cornerstone of economic and psychological theory. However, the neural mechanisms that compute EV have not been characterized. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined neural activation as subjects anticipated monetary gains and losses that varied in magnitude and probabi...