The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is a heterogeneous brain structure that serves a central
role in motivation and reward processing. Abnormalities in the function of VTA dopamine …

Although it is challenging for individuals with cocaine addiction to achieve abstinence, the
greatest difficulty is avoiding relapse to drug taking, which is often triggered by cues …

This protocol is a practical guide to the N-methyl-D-glucamine (NMDG) protective recovery
method of brain slice preparation. Numerous recent studies have validated the utility of this …

It has been proposed that memories are encoded by modification of synaptic strengths
through cellular mechanisms such as long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression …

Midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons are proposed to signal reward prediction error (RPE), a
fundamental parameter in associative learning models. This RPE hypothesis provides a …

What is the defining property of addiction? We dust off a several-decades-long debate about
the relative importance of two forms of reinforcement—positive reinforcement, subjectively …

Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing disorder that has been characterized by (1)
compulsion to seek and take the drug,(2) loss of control in limiting intake, and (3) emergence …

Addictive drugs have in common that they target the mesocorticolimbic dopamine (DA)
system. This system originates in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and projects mainly to the …

Loss of control over harmful drug seeking is one of the most intractable aspects of addiction,
as human substance abusers continue to pursue drugs despite incurring significant negative …

In the mammalian central nervous system, excitatory glutamatergic synapses harness
neurotransmission that is mediated by ion flow through α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4 …