Compulsion is a cardinal symptom of drug addiction (severe substance use disorder).
However, compulsion is observed in only a small proportion of individuals who repeatedly …

The past decade has witnessed exponentially growing interest in the lateral habenula (LHb)
owing to new discoveries relating to its critical role in regulating negatively motivated …

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) plays an important role in regulating multiple behaviors, and
its dysfunction has been linked to many neural disorders. However, the molecular, cellular …

Stress is recognized as an important issue in basic and clinical neuroscience research,
based upon the founding historical studies by Walter Canon and Hans Selye in the past …

The N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist ketamine has attracted enormous
interest in mental health research owing to its rapid antidepressant actions, but its …

INTRODUCTION Depression is an episodic form of mental illness, yet the circuit-level
mechanisms driving the induction, remission, and recurrence of depressive episodes over …

Cognitive control, the ability to orchestrate behavior in accord with our goals, depends on
the prefrontal cortex. These cognitive functions are heavily influenced by the …

Ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA) neurons play a central role in mediating
motivated behaviors, but the circuitry through which they signal positive and negative …

Dopamine-releasing neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) have central roles in
reward-related and goal-directed behaviours. VTA dopamine-releasing neurons are …

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 …