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Scientists pinpoint brain circuit for risk preference in rats

Investigators at Stanford University have identified a small group of nerve cells in a specific brain region of rats whose signaling activity, or lack of it, explains the vast bulk of differences in...

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Neuroscientists identify brain circuits that could play a role in mental...

Some mental illnesses may stem, in part, from the brain's inability to correctly assign emotional associations to events. For example, people who are depressed often do not feel happy even when...

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Dopamine neurons have a role in movement, new study finds

Princeton University researchers have found that dopamine - a brain chemical involved in learning, motivation and many other functions - also has a direct role in representing or encoding movement. The...

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Fighting addiction through the gut-brain axis

"We are what we eat." This piece of folk knowledge is true in more ways than one. In fact, it is well known that food, through action on the enteric system, has direct effects on the brain. The...

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Marijuana use dampens brain's response to reward over time, study finds

Most people would get a little 'rush' out of the idea that they're about to win some money. In fact, if you could look into their brain at that very moment, you'd see lots of activity in the part of...

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Protein found to regulate cocaine craving after withdrawal

Neuroscientists know that cocaine addiction and withdrawal rewire the brain. But figuring out how to disrupt those changes to treat addiction requires an extremely detailed understanding of how those...

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Study supports new strategy to fight cocaine addiction

An international team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has found strong evidence supporting a new strategy against drug addiction. The researchers showed that a compound that...

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Gambling addiction triggers the same brain areas as drug and alcohol cravings

Gambling addiction activates the same brain pathways as drug and alcohol cravings, suggests new research.

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Lack of joy from music linked to brain disconnection

Have you ever met someone who just wasn't into music? They may have a condition called specific musical anhedonia, which affects three-to-five per cent of the population.

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High-fat diet alters reward system in rats

Exposure to high-fat diet from childhood may increase the sensitivity of the dopamine system later in adulthood, according to a study in male rats published in eNeuro. The research describes potential...

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Oxytocin reduces cravings for methamphetamine

Many people have suggested that addiction hijacks the body's natural drives in the service of compulsive drug use. A new study now suggests that hijacking another natural system in the brain may help...

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Researchers closer to cracking neural code of love

A team of neuroscientists from Emory University's Silvio O. Conte Center for Oxytocin and Social Cognition has discovered a key connection between areas of the adult female prairie vole's brain reward...

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Anticipation helps pathological gamblers hold out for larger-but-later rewards

Triggering pathological gamblers to envision a future personal experience reduces their preference for an immediate reward over a larger, delayed award, according to a study published in eNeuro.

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Poor adolescent diet may influence brain and behavior in adulthood

Adolescent male mice fed a diet lacking omega-3 fatty acids show increased anxiety-like behavior and worse performance on a memory task in adulthood, according to new research published in The Journal...

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New study identifies gene that could play key role in depression

Globally, depression affects more than 300 million people annually. Nearly 800,000 die from suicide every year—it is the second-leading cause of death among people between the ages of 15 to 29. Beyond...

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Low-dose diazepam can increase social competitiveness

Psychologists speak of anxiety in two forms: "state" anxiety, which refers to anxiety arising from a particular situation; and "trait" anxiety, which refers to anxiety as part of a person's overall...

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Maryland scientists research gene linked to depression

Although there are medications to treat depression, many scientists aren't sure why they're effective and why they don't work for everyone.

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An immune regulator of addiction

Drug addiction is often thought of as neuron-centric, but in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, M.D./Ph.D. student Daniel Kashima and his mentor, Brad Grueter,...

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Protein links alcohol abuse and changes in brain's reward center

When given access to alcohol, over time mice develop a pattern similar to what we would call "problem drinking" in people, but the brain mechanisms that drive this shift have been unclear. Now a team...

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Oxytocin turns up the volume of your social environment

Before you shop for the "cuddle" hormone oxytocin to relieve stress and enhance your social life, read this: a new study from the University of California, Davis, suggests that sometimes, blocking the...

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Study shows how 'love hormone' oxytocin spurs sociability

Why is it so much fun to hang out with our friends? Why are some people so sociable while others are loners or seemingly outright allergic to interactions with others?

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Why do we fall asleep when bored?

Humans often defy sleepiness and stay awake when attention is necessary,yet experience an inescapable desire to sleep in boring situations. The brain mechanisms governing the regulation of sleep by...

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Realistic rodent model of drug addiction

Drug addiction may not require a habitual relationship with a substance, suggests findings from a new model of cocaine administration in rats that better captures the human experience of obtaining and...

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Hope for autism: Optogenetics shines light on social interactions

Ilana Witten didn't set out to study spatial learning. She thought she was investigating how mice socialize—but she discovered that in mouse brains, the social and the spatial are inextricably linked.

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Brain zap saps destructive urges

A characteristic electrical-activity pattern in a key brain region predicts impulsive actions just before they occur. A brief electrical pulse at just the right time can prevent them, Stanford...

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Amphetamine abuse disrupts development of mouse prefrontal cortex

Recreational drug use during adolescence may disrupt development of an understudied part of the prefrontal cortex, according to a study of male mice published in eNeuro.

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Researchers identify protein involved in cocaine addiction

Mount Sinai researchers have identified a protein produced by the immune system—granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF)—that could be responsible for the development of cocaine addiction.

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Lifting the veil on 'valence,' brain study reveals roots of desire, dislike

The amygdala is a tiny hub of emotions where in 2016 a team led by MIT neuroscientist Kay Tye found specific populations of neurons that assign good or bad feelings, or "valence," to experience....

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How brain's reward system lessened distress over 2016 election results

Some people disturbed by the 2016 presidential election have suffered a loss of appetite, trouble sleeping and concentrating, and have become easily annoyed, while others equally disturbed by the...

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Beware of palm oil in your Valentine's chocolate

A diet rich in saturated fat and sugar not only leads to obesity, it creates inflammation in the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain that controls mood and the feeling of reward. And this...

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