Many of the brain's reward systems converge on the nucleus accumbens, a region richly
innervated by excitatory, inhibitory, and modulatory afferents representing the circuitry …

Substance use disorder (SUD) is a chronic, relapsing disease with a highly multifaceted
pathology that includes (but is not limited to) sensitivity to drug-associated cues, negative …

Surviving in a world with hidden rewards and dangers requires choosing the appropriate
behaviours. Recent discoveries indicate that the habenula plays a prominent part in such …

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is best known for its robust dopaminergic projections to
forebrain regions and their critical role in regulating reward, motivation, cognition, and …

Lateral habenula (LHb) projections to the ventral midbrain, including the rostromedial
tegmental nucleus (RMTg), convey negative reward–related information, but the behavioral …

Separate studies have implicated the lateral habenula (LHb) or amygdala-related regions in
processing aversive stimuli, but their relationships to each other and to appetitive …

Prior studies revealed that aversive stimuli and psychostimulant drugs elicit Fos expression
in neurons clustered above and behind the interpeduncular nucleus that project strongly to …

Nicotine is the principal addictive component that drives continued tobacco use despite
users' knowledge of the harmful consequences. The initiation of addiction involves the …

Lateral habenula (LHb) neurons signal negative “reward-prediction errors” and inhibit
midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons. Yet LHb neurons are largely glutamatergic, indicating that …

Epidemiological data demonstrate that while women report lower rates of drug use than
men, the number of current drug users and abusers who are women continues to increase …