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Neuronal fear pathways [ edit ] In fear conditioning, the main circuits that are involved are the sensory areas that process the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli, certain regions of the amygdala that undergo plasticity (or long-term potentiation) during learning, and the regions that bear an effect on the expression of specific conditioned ...
The mesolimbic pathway and a specific set of the pathway's output neurons (e.g. D1-type medium spiny neurons within the nucleus accumbens) play a central role in the neurobiology of addiction. [ 20 ] [ 21 ] [ 22 ] Drug addiction is an illness caused by habitual substance use that induces chemical changes in the brain's circuitry. [ 23 ]
Frontostriatal circuits are neural pathways that connect frontal lobe regions with the striatum and mediate motor, cognitive, and behavioural functions within the brain. [1] They receive inputs from dopaminergic, serotonergic, noradrenergic, and cholinergic cell groups that modulate information processing. [2]
Brief activation of an excitatory pathway can produce what is known as long-term depression (LTD) of synaptic transmission in many areas of the brain. LTD is induced by a minimum level of postsynaptic depolarization and simultaneous increase in the intracellular calcium concentration at the postsynaptic neuron.
According to the theory, these neural pathways regulate autonomic states and the expression of emotional and social behaviour. It claims that in mammals, facial expressions are connected to internal physical reactions, such as cardiac and digestive changes, [ 22 ] and in general physiological state dictates the range of behaviour and ...
In neurophysiology, long-term depression (LTD) is an activity-dependent reduction in the efficacy of neuronal synapses lasting hours or longer following a long patterned stimulus. LTD occurs in many areas of the CNS with varying mechanisms depending upon brain region and developmental progress.
A neural pathway connects one part of the nervous system to another using bundles of axons called tracts. The optic tract that extends from the optic nerve is an example of a neural pathway because it connects the eye to the brain; additional pathways within the brain connect to the visual cortex.
While depression severity as a whole is not correlated with a blunted neural response to reward, anhedonia is directly correlated to reduced activity in the reward system. [79] The study of reward in depression is limited by heterogeneity in the definition and conceptualizations of reward and anhedonia.