A new brain connection discovered by University of California, Irvine researchers can explain how early-life stress and adversity trigger disrupted operation of the brain's reward circuit, offering a ...

When faced with multiple food options and ultimately choosing one, the factors of that decision-making process may be more physiological than previously assumed. A group of scientists recently ...

New findings published in the journal Nature Neuroscience have shed light on a mysterious pathway between the reward center of the brain that is key to how we form habits, known as the basal ganglia, ...

Researchers have uncovered a mechanism in the brain that allows cocaine and morphine to take over natural reward processing systems. Mount Sinai researchers, in collaboration with scientists at The ...

Figure 8 from Copenhaver & LeGates (2024) visually represents the similarities and differences in how male and female mice strengthen synapses between the nucleus accumbens and hippocampus. The NMDA ...

The areas of the brain that process reward are activated when we make choices that make other people happy, as well as ourselves, a new study has found. Researchers at the Ludwig Maximilian University ...

The placebo effect can have a significant influence on treatment outcomes. While we still have a lot to learn about how and why a patient’s expectations can influence the effectiveness of medication ...

However, the mechanisms by which mental states might influence the immune or cardiovascular systems are still not well understood. Asya Rolls, a neuroscientist at the Technion – Israel Institute of ...

Maybe you’d like to spend time on hobbies or hang out with friends, but nothing feels as exciting and engaging as it used to –– so you just squander another hour on social media. Your problem may have ...

Nicotine addiction remains one of the most persistent public health challenges worldwide, driven by changes in the brain that ...