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Brain Sciences
Special Issues
Reward Processing in Health and Disease
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Reward Processing in Health and Disease

A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Psychiatric Diseases".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 March 2024) | Viewed by 6145

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Seungwoo Kang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, Augusta University Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA, USA
Interests: substance use; substance dependence; reward seeking behavior; withdrawal symptoms; alcohol use disorder; substance use disorder; psychiatric disorders

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Motivation to obtain a reward is a strong driving force in animal behavior, closely linked to the functioning of the mesocorticolimbic system. The activity of this system is largely modulated by various pharmacological agents, leading to adaptive and maladaptive changes in behaviors. With addiction posing a major public health problem, a better characterization of the processes that cause the transition from substance use to dependence is needed to identify risk factors and inform effective prevention strategies.

This Special Issue aims to deepen the knowledge on the cell-type-, circuit-, context-, and age-dependent neuropharmacological basis of reward-related behaviors. We will consider original research papers, reviews, and meta-analyses focusing on biochemical, electrophysiological, and behavioral results stemming from both animal model research and human studies.

Dr. Seungwoo Kang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • substance use
  • addiction
  • reward circuitry
  • reward-seeking behavior
  • withdrawal symptoms

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 3844 KiB  
Article
Neural Differences in Relation to Risk Preferences during Reward Processing: An Event-Related Potential Study
by Sedigheh Naghel, Antonino Vallesi, Hassan Sabouri Moghadam and Mohammad Ali Nazari
Brain Sci. 2023, 13(9), 1235; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13091235 - 24 Aug 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1320
Abstract
Inter-individual variability in risk preferences can be reflected in reward processing differences, making people risk-seekers or risk-averse. However, the neural correlates of reward processing in individuals with risk preferences remain unknown. Consequently, this event-related potential (ERP) study examined and compared electrophysiological correlates associated [...] Read more.
Inter-individual variability in risk preferences can be reflected in reward processing differences, making people risk-seekers or risk-averse. However, the neural correlates of reward processing in individuals with risk preferences remain unknown. Consequently, this event-related potential (ERP) study examined and compared electrophysiological correlates associated with different stages of reward processing in risk-seeking and risk-averse groups. Individuals scoring in the bottom and top 20% on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) were deemed risk-averse and risk-seeking, respectively. Participants engaged in a gambling task while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Risk-seekers tended to choose high-risk options significantly more frequently than low-risk options, whereas risk-averse individuals chose low-risk options significantly more frequently than high-risk ones. All participants selected the low-risk alternative more slowly than the high-risk option. During the anticipation stage, the low-risk option elicited a relatively attenuated stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) response from risk-seekers compared to risk-averse participants. During the outcome stage, feedback-related negativity (FRN) increased in risk-seekers responding to greater losses but not in risk-averse participants. These results indicate that ERP components can detect differences in reward processing during risky situations. In addition, these results suggest that motivation and cognitive control, along with their associated neural processes, may play a central role in differences in reward-based behavior between the two groups. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reward Processing in Health and Disease)
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12 pages, 2259 KiB  
Article
Anhedonia in Relation to Reward and Effort Learning in Young People with Depression Symptoms
by Anna-Lena Frey, M. Siyabend Kaya, Irina Adeniyi and Ciara McCabe
Brain Sci. 2023, 13(2), 341; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13020341 - 17 Feb 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2858
Abstract
Anhedonia, a central depression symptom, is associated with impairments in reward processing. However, it is not well understood which sub-components of reward processing (anticipation, motivation, consummation, and learning) are impaired in association with anhedonia in depression. In particular, it is unclear how learning [...] Read more.
Anhedonia, a central depression symptom, is associated with impairments in reward processing. However, it is not well understood which sub-components of reward processing (anticipation, motivation, consummation, and learning) are impaired in association with anhedonia in depression. In particular, it is unclear how learning about different rewards and the effort needed to obtain them might be associated with anhedonia and depression symptoms. Therefore, we examined learning in young people (N = 132, mean age 20, range 17–25 yrs.) with a range of depression and anhedonia symptoms using a probabilistic instrumental learning task. The task required participants to learn which options to choose to maximize their reward outcomes across three conditions (chocolate taste, puppy images, or money) and to minimize the physical effort required to obtain the rewards. Additionally, we collected questionnaire measures of anticipatory and consummatory anhedonia, as well as subjective reports of “liking”, “wanting” and “willingness to exert effort” for the rewards used in the task. We found that as anticipatory anhedonia increased, subjective liking and wanting of rewards decreased. Moreover, higher anticipatory anhedonia was significantly associated with lower reward learning accuracy, and participants demonstrated significantly higher reward learning than effort learning accuracy. To our knowledge, this is the first study observing an association of anhedonia with reward liking, wanting, and learning when reward and effort learning are measured simultaneously. Our findings suggest an impaired ability to learn from rewarding outcomes could contribute to anhedonia in young people. Future longitudinal research is needed to confirm this and reveal the specific aspects of reward learning that predict anhedonia. These aspects could then be targeted by novel anhedonia interventions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reward Processing in Health and Disease)
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9 pages, 701 KiB  
Article
Paired Housing or a Socially-Paired Context Decreases Ethanol Conditioned Place Preference in Male Rats
by Eva Lorenz, Chase Moye and Kah-Chung Leong
Brain Sci. 2022, 12(11), 1485; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12111485 - 2 Nov 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1294
Abstract
Alcohol abuse dramatically affects individuals’ lives nationwide. The 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) estimated that 10.2% of Americans suffer from alcohol use disorder. Although social support has been shown to aid in general addiction prevention and rehabilitation, the benefits [...] Read more.
Alcohol abuse dramatically affects individuals’ lives nationwide. The 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) estimated that 10.2% of Americans suffer from alcohol use disorder. Although social support has been shown to aid in general addiction prevention and rehabilitation, the benefits of social support are not entirely understood. The present study sought to compare the benefits of social interaction on the conditioned ethanol approach behavior in rats through a conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm in which a drug is paired with one of two distinct contexts. In experiment 1A, rats were single-housed and received conditioning trials in which ethanol was paired with the less preferred context. In experiment 1B, rats underwent procedures identical to experiment 1A, but were pair-housed throughout the paradigm. In experiment 1C, rats were single-housed, but concurrently conditioned to a socially-paired context and an ethanol-paired context. By comparing the time spent between the ethanol-paired environment and the saline-paired or socially-paired environment, we extrapolated the extent of ethanol approach behavior in the pair-housed, single-housed, and concurrently conditioned rats. Our results revealed that social interaction, both in pair-housed animals or concurrently socially-conditioned animals, diminished the ethanol approach behavior, which highlights the importance of social support in addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery programs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reward Processing in Health and Disease)
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