Reward cues have been found to increase the investment of effort in tasks even when cues are presented suboptimally (i.e. very briefly), making them hard to consciously detect. Such effort responses to suboptimal reward cues are assumed to rely mainly on the mesolimbic dopamine system, including the ventral striatum. To provide further support for this assumption, we performed two studies inves...

The primate cortex represents and produces events in a distributed way, which calls for a mechanism that integrates their features into coherent structures. Visuomotor integration seems to be driven by dopaminergic (DA) pathways but which subsystems are involved is currently unknown. The present study compared the impact of the recreational use of two drugs on visuomotor integration: cannabis, ...

Successful interaction with the environment requires flexible updating of our beliefs about the world. By estimating the likelihood of future events, it is possible to prepare appropriate actions in advance and execute fast, accurate motor responses. According to theoretical proposals, agents track the variability arising from changing environments by computing various forms of uncertainty. Sev...

Food palatability acts on the dopaminergic reward system to override homeostatic control; however, whether postingestive calorie load in the absence of taste affects this system remains unclear. In this issue of Neuron, de Araujo et al. show that mice lacking functional "sweet" taste receptors (trpm5-/-) develop a preference for sucrose by activating the mesolimbic dopamine-accumbal pathway, so...

What are the genetic and neural components that support adaptive learning from positive and negative outcomes? Here, we show with genetic analyses that three independent dopaminergic mechanisms contribute to reward and avoidance learning in humans. A polymorphism in the DARPP-32 gene, associated with striatal dopamine function, predicted relatively better probabilistic reward learning. Converse...

a mixture of acetaminophen, diphenhydramine hydrochloride and pseudoephedrine hydrochloride is used for the symptomatic treatment of common cold. in this study, a derivative spectrophotometric method based on zero-crossing technique was proposed for simultaneous determination of acetaminophen, diphenhydramine hydrochloride and pseudoephedrine hydrochloride. determination of these drugs was perf...

Episodic memory, working memory, emotional memory, and attention are subject to dopaminergic modulation. However, the potential role of dopamine on the generation of false memories is unknown. This study defined the role of the dopamine D2 receptor on true and false recognition memories. Twenty-four young, healthy volunteers ingested a single dose of placebo or 400 mg oral sulpiride, a dopamine...

A temperature sensitive dopamine-imprinted polymer was prepared in 80% aqueous methanol solution by free-radical cross-linking co-polymerisation of methacrylic acid and acrylamide at 60 degrees C in the presence of N,N-methylene-bis-acrylamide as the cross-linker and dopamine hydrochloride as template molecule. The resulting molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) formed temperature responsive mate...

Adaptive learning from reward and punishment is vital for human survival. Striatal and frontal dopaminergic activities are associated with adaptive learning. For example, the C957T single nucleotide polymorphism of the dopamine receptor D2 (DRD2) gene alters striatal D2 receptor availability and affects individuals' adaptive learning ability. Specifically, individuals with the T/T genotype, whi...