Loading...
Frustrative nonreward and the basal ganglia: role of outputs from the nucleus accumbens in reward loss
Hagen, Christopher
Hagen, Christopher
Citations
Altmetric:
Soloist
Composer
Publisher
Date
2024-05-06
Additional date(s)
Abstract
Mammals in general experience bouts of negative emotion when they unexpectedly experience a reduction in expected reward, known as unexpected reward downshifts (URDs). The specific biological and psychological mechanisms which have evolved to respond to downshifted rewards with behaviors related to anxiety, conflict, and even pain, are known collectively as frustration. The present set of experiments examined three neural pathways in and their role in the frustration response to URDs. Using a double-infection chemogenetic manipulation procedure, neurons originating in the nucelus accumbens (NAc) and synapsing onto the globus pallidus externus (GPe), globus pallidus internus (GPe), or ventral pallidum (VP), were activated during key moments in a reward loss paradigm. Animals were trained with 32% sucrose and downshifted to 2% sucrose. It was found that exciting the pathway between the NAc and GPe had no effect on their response to being downshifted, whereas activating either the pathway between the NAc to GPi or the pathway from the NAc to VP caused a significant increase in consummatory suppression and exacerbation of the frustration response. All these effects were in the absence of any gross motor effects shown in an open field. Overall, these findings provide new insights into how animals process the emotional value of rewards when their expectations are violated.
Contents
Subject
Experimental psychology
Basal ganglia
Chemogenetics
Consummatory reward downshift
Nucleus accumbens
Basal ganglia
Chemogenetics
Consummatory reward downshift
Nucleus accumbens
Subject(s)
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Genre
Dissertation
Description
Format
Department
Psychology