Neurons in the ventral striatum (VS) fire to cues that predict differently valued rewards. It is unclear whether this activity represents the value associated with the expected reward or the level of motivation induced by reward anticipation. To distinguish between the two, we trained rats on a task in which we varied value independently from motivation by manipulating the size of the reward ex...

Rats trained in a dual-solution cross-maze task, which can be solved by place and response strategies, predominantly used a response strategy after extensive training. This paper examines the involvement of the medial and lateral dorsal striatum (mDS and lDS) in the choice of these strategies after partial and extensive training. Our results show that rats with lDS and mDS lesions used mainly a...

Reward processing has been implicated in developmental disorders. However, the classic task to probe reward anticipation, the monetary incentive delay task, has an abstract coding of reward and no storyline and may therefore be less appropriate for use with developmental populations. We modified the task to create a version appropriate for use with children. We investigated whether this child-f...

Signatures of local adaptation have been found at all life stages in plants. Yet, the contribution later plant is rarely disentangled from influence early-life stages. Here, we investigate direct adult to climate two subspecies snapdragon plants (Antirrhinum majus), while growth conditions homogenized We compared genetic variation fitness proxies (i.e. flowering, number flowers and survival) ph...

Recent efforts to classify subtypes of major depressive disorder marked by different psychophysiological indicators have identified blunted reward-related brain activation in gambling tasks as a characteristic linked specifically depressed participants with impaired mood reactivity. The current study compared individuals diagnosed (n = 26) healthy controls 24) regarding responses gain and loss ...

Uncovering the reward function of optimal controllers is crucial to determine desired performance that an expert wants inject a certain dynamical system. In this paper, inference algorithm discrete-time expert's proposed. The approach inspired by complementary mechanisms striatum, neocortex, and hippocampus for decision making experience transference. These systems work together infer associate...

Afferents from the amygdala help to define the ventral striatum and mediate goal-directed behaviors. In addition to well known inputs to the classic ventral striatum, the amygdala also projects to the caudoventral striatum and amygdalostriatal area. We examined whether the primate caudoventral striatum and amygdalostriatal area can be considered part of the "ventral" striatum based on cellular ...