A new study on laboratory rats has found that the brain’s ability to learn from rewards is enhanced by the hormone estrogen.

Decision-making, the process through which humans choose between different available options, has been the topic of countless neuroscience, psychology and behavioral science studies. This process does ...

Reward-seeking and threat avoidance are critical for survival. Pursuing enjoyable things triggers the release of dopamine in the brain, making people feel pleasure. On the contrary, people ...

Researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism have found that anticipation of increasing monetary rewards selectively activates the human nucleus accumbens of the ventral ...

A new study shows that estrogen naturally modulates dopamine signaling in the brain, altering how female rats learn reward cues across the reproductive cycle.

Chronic cocaine use is associated with prominent morphological changes in nucleus accumbens shell (NACsh) neurons, including increases in dendritic spine density along with enhanced motivation for ...

Aims: A possible addiction mechanism has been represented by altered functional connectivity (FC) in the resting state. The aim of this study was to evaluate the FCs of the insula and nucleus ...

A team from Scripps Research says it has discovered a molecular process in brain cells that may be a major driver of drug addiction, and thus may become a target for future addiction treatments.

Neuroscientists at UCSF’s Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center (EGCRC) have discovered that a molecule in neurons boosts the brain’s response to alcohol, triggering in minutes chemical changes that ...

In a study using genetically modified mice, researchers found that the nucleus accumbens recruited by cocaine use are largely distinct from nucleus accumbens recruited by sucrose, or table sugar.