Executive summary “Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive
in the way it becomes known to the self—to the mediating intellect—as to verge close to …

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) has emerged as one of the regions most consistently impaired in
major depressive disorder (MDD). Although functional and structural PFC abnormalities …

Biomarkers have transformed modern medicine but remain largely elusive in psychiatry,
partly because there is a weak correspondence between diagnostic labels and their …

Rewards are both “liked” and “wanted,” and those 2 words seem almost interchangeable.
However, the brain circuitry that mediates the psychological process of “wanting” a particular …

Dopamine is a critical modulator of both learning and motivation. This presents a problem:
how can target cells know whether increased dopamine is a signal to learn or to move? It is …

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is accompanied by intense cortical activity, underlying its
wake-like electroencephalogram. The neural activity inducing REM sleep is thought to …

Major depression is a leading contributor to the global burden of disease. This situation is
mainly related to the chronicity and/or recurrence of the disorder, and to poor response to …

Modern optogenetics can be tuned to evoke activity that corresponds to naturally occurring
local or global activity in timing, magnitude or individual-cell patterning. This outcome has …

Apathy and anhedonia are common syndromes of motivation that are associated with a wide
range of brain disorders and have no established therapies. Research using animal models …

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent, debilitating and sometimes deadly
consequence of exposure to severe psychological trauma. Although effective treatments …