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Brain Res 2021 Apr 11:147479. Epub 2021 Apr 11.

Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience/MINDLab, Danish Neuroscience Center, Aarhus University Hospital, Nørrebrogade 44, Building 1A, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark; Department of Nuclear Medicine & PET-Centre, Aarhus University Hospital, Palle Juul-Jensens Boulevard 99, Indgang J, Plan 2, J220, 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark.

Background: Disorders of substance and behavioral addiction are believed to be associated with a myopic bias towards the incentive salience of addiction-related cues away from general rewards in the environment. In non-treatment seeking gambling disorder patients, neural activity to anticipation of monetary rewards is enhanced relative to erotic rewards. Here we focus on the balance between anticipation of reward types in active treatment gamblers relative to healthy volunteers. Read More

Psychopharmacology (Berl) 2021 Apr 12. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

Department of Addictive Behaviour and Addiction Medicine, Central Institute of Mental Health, University of Heidelberg, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.

Rationale: Alcohol use disorder is a common and devastating mental illness for which satisfactory treatments are still lacking. Nalmefene, as an opioid receptor modulator, could pharmacologically support the reduction of drinking by reducing the (anticipated) rewarding effects of alcohol and expanding the range of treatment options. It has been hypothesized that nalmefene acts via an indirect modulation of the mesolimbic reward system. Read More

Brain Struct Funct 2021 Apr 11. Epub 2021 Apr 11.

FIDMAG Germanes Hospitalàries Research Foundation, Carrer Antoni Pujades 38, 08830 Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.

Reward prediction error, the difference between the expected and obtained reward, is known to act as a reinforcement learning neural signal. In the current study, we propose a model fitting approach that combines behavioral and neural data to fit computational models of reinforcement learning. Briefly, we penalized subject-specific fitted parameters that moved away too far from the group median, except when that deviation led to an improvement in the model's fit to neural responses. Read More

J Psychiatr Res 2021 Mar 26;138:83-88. Epub 2021 Mar 26.

Department of Psychiatry, UMC Utrecht Brain Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Electronic address:

Contemporary preclinical models suggest that abnormal functioning of a brain network consisting of the hippocampus, midbrain and striatum plays a critical role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Previous neuroimaging studies examined individual aspects of this model in schizophrenia patients and individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis. However, this exact preclinical brain network has not been translated to human neuroimaging studies with schizophrenia patients and therefore it is currently unknown how functioning of this network is altered in patients. Read More

Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2021 Apr 9. Epub 2021 Apr 9.

Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.

A fundamental question in neuropsychiatry is whether a neurobiological continuum accompanies the behavioral continuum between subclinical and clinical traits. Impulsivity is a trait that varies in the general population and manifests severely in disorders like psychopathy. Is the neural profile of severe impulsivity in psychopathy an extreme but continuous manifestation of that associated with impulsivity in the general population (different by degree)? Or is it discontinuous and unique (different by kind)? Here, we compare systematic reviews of the relationship between impulsivity and gray matter in psychopathy and in the general population. Read More