EXPLORE THE SCIENCE
TL;DR: In mice with a painful, inflamed paw, two separate sets of neurons in a pain-and-emotion brain area seemed to drive different side effects. One set, wired to the amygdala, controlled anxiety-like behavior, while the other, wired to a reward hub, control…
Read article
TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that one session of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) reduced cigarette craving in adults with tobacco use disorder, and the people who responded had he…
Read article
TL;DR: A 2026 rat study in Brain Structure and Function found that ventral pallidum activity supports juvenile social play, while activating inhibitory nucleus accumbens inputs to the ventral pallidum reduced play behavior in both male and female rats. Key Fin…
Read article
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv used 18F-DOPA positron emission tomography (PET) to estimate dopamine synthesis and storage, and found that caudate dopamine synthesis decreased as schizophrenia patients moved from active psychosis into early psychotic remiss…
Read article
TL;DR: A 2026 mouse study in Nature found that small-molecule glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), obesity and diabetes drugs built around a glucose-linked hormone pathway, suppressed palatable-food intake through central amygdala neurons that…
Read article
Counterfactual Curiosity Lit Up the Striatum TL;DR: People paid a waiting cost to reveal a missed payoff in a balloon task, and reward-related striatum activity tracked both the choice to know and the size of the missed opportunity. Key Findings Functional MRI…
Read article
How Cocaine Rewires the Brain’s Reward Circuit TL;DR: Cocaine hijacks a transcription factor called FosB in a brain circuit connecting the hippocampus to the nucleus accumbens, suppressing neural excitability and driving compulsive drug-seeking behavior—a mech…
Read article
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the nucleus accumbens reduces cocaine seeking in male rats but is ineffective in female rats, regardless of their estrous cycle phase. Highlights: No FDA-Approved Treatments: There are currently no FDA-approved treatments for co…
Read article
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of a brain region called the ventral capsule/ventral striatum (VC/VS) may provide long-term relief for people with severe, treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), according to a new retrospective study. Key finding…
Read article
Researchers explored how our brain’s reward system connects to depression and other common mental health problems like social anxiety and eating disorders. They found that a dampened reward response seems to follow, rather than precede, symptoms of depression…
Read article