Curiosity is a desire for information that is not motivated by strategic concerns. Latent learning is not driven by standard reinforcement processes. We propose that curiosity serves the purpose of motivating latent learning. While latent learning is often treated as a passive or incidental process, it normally reflects a strong evolved pressure to actively seek large amounts of information. That information

In the real world, uncertainty is omnipresent due to incomplete or noisy information. This makes inferring the state-of-the-world difficult. Furthermore, the state-of-the-world often changes over time, though with some regularity. This makes learning and decision-making challenging. Organisms have evolved to take advantage of environmental regularities, that allow organisms to acquire a model of the

The rise of polarization over the past 25 years has many Americans worried about the state of politics. This worry is understandable: up to a point, polarization can help democracies, but when it becomes too vast, such that entire swaths of the population refuse to consider each other's views, this thwarts democratic methods for solving societal problems. Given widespread polarization in America, what

Episodic memory depends on the hippocampus and its coordination with a distributed network of interconnected brain areas. Recent findings indicate that the function of this network can be altered using network-targeted transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). These stimulation experiments have identified increases in episodic memory and the network-wide coordination it requires. Network-target stimulation

This review focuses on possible contributions of neural dedifferentiation to age-related cognitive decline. Neural dedifferentiation is held to reflect a breakdown in the functional specificity of brain regions and networks that compromises the fidelity of neural representations supporting episodic memory and related cognitive functions. The evidence for age-related dedifferentiation is robust when

Accumulating research indicates oxytocin plays a significant role in regulating the behavioral and neurobiological responses to stress. Evidence from preclinical models suggests the effect of oxytocin on stress-responsivity appears to be dependent on individual characteristics, including sex. Although the interaction between oxytocinergic and stress systems has been widely studied in rodents, recent

Loneliness, or perceived social isolation, may be evident in any group-living species, although its assessment in nonhumans provides some measurement challenges. It is well-known that loneliness in humans confers significant risk for morbidity and mortality, although mechanisms remain unclear. The authors describe a naturally-occurring model of loneliness in adult male rhesus monkeys that shows many

Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) aims to elucidate mechanisms by which the immune system can influence behavior. Given the complexity of the brain, studies using inbred rodents have shed critical insight into the presumed vagaries of the human condition. This is particularly true for stress modeling where adverse stimuli, conditions and/or interactions elicit patterned behavioral reactions that can translate

Gene expression profiling studies of people exposed to chronic threat have identified a Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity (CTRA) in circulating immune cells. This physiological pattern is characterized by up-regulated expression of genes involved in inflammation and down-regulated expression of genes involved in Type I interferon responses. The CTRA is mediated by beta-adrenergic signaling

Placebo hypoalgesia provides pain relief for individuals via the expectation of a beneficial or therapeutic outcome, while nocebo hyperalgesia results in increased pain in response to anxious anticipation of harmful outcomes. These forms of placebo pain modulation can be induced through repeated associations, verbal cues, and social interactions. Understanding these methods of pain modulation can provide

The natural world presents a myriad of dangers that can threaten an organism's survival. This diversity of threats is matched by a set of universal and species specific defensive behaviors which are often subsumed under the emotions of fear and anxiety. A major issue in the field of affective science, however, is that these emotions are often conflated and scientists fail to reflect the ecological

A generally intelligent agent faces a dilemma: it requires a complex sensorimotor space to be capable of solving a wide range of problems, but many tasks are only feasible given the right problem-specific formulation. I argue that a necessary but understudied requirement for general intelligence is the ability to form task-specific abstract representations. I show that the reinforcement learning paradigm

Our visual perception of the world - seeing form and colour or navigating the environment - depends on the interaction of light and matter in the environment. Light also has a more fundamental role in regulating rhythms in physiology and behaviour, as well as in the acute secretion of hormones such as melatonin and changes in alertness, where light exposure at short-time, medium-time and long-time

Melanopsin is a short-wavelength-sensitive photopigment that was discovered only around 20 years ago. It is expressed in the cell bodies and processes of a subset of retinal ganglion cells in the retina (the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells; ipRGCs), thereby allowing them to signal light even in the absence of cone and rod input. Many of the fundamental properties of melanopsin signalling

Converging lines of evidence suggest that men generally smoke for nicotine-related reinforcement, whereas women smoke for non-nicotine factors. Women have more difficulty quitting smoking and are less responsive to nicotine replacement therapies than men, underscoring the importance of examining sex differences in the neurochemical mechanisms underlying nicotine-motivated behavior. We review the recent

A key survival skill is the ability to regulate your emotions so as to respond adaptively to life's challenges. As such, it is essential to understand how we can improve this ability through training. While this is still a new area of research, to date, behavioral and brain studies have taken one of two approaches: either training individuals to implement strategies that directly impact current emotional

Immunological aging, which encompasses age-associated declines in the immune system (immunosenescence) and increases in inflammation (inflammaging), is associated with morbidity and mortality. A growing body of research suggests stress is one factor that may accelerate immunological aging. This article provides a brief overview of immunological aging, describes key biological pathways acting at multiple

Scientists have long studied the actions that impact basic survival in various domains of life, such as defense, foraging, reproduction, thermoregulation, and so on, as if such actions will reveal the nature of emotion. Each domain of survival came to be characterized by a repertoire of distinct actions, and each action was thought to be caused by a dedicated neural circuit, called a survival circuit

Research on emotional learning and memory is traditionally approached from one of two directions: episodic memory and classical conditioning. These approaches differ substantially in methodology and intellectual tradition. Here, we offer a new approach to the study of emotional memory in humans that involves integrating theoretical knowledge and experimental techniques from these seemingly distinct

A decision to eat or not to eat can be beneficial or detrimental to an organism, depending on internal and external conditions. Because feeding is essential for survival, as it replenishes energy and nutrients, in safe environments, its expression is prioritized over other behaviors. Under threat, responding to danger is a higher priority for survival and feeding is paused even in hungry states. Thus

The role of cortico-striatal pathways in cue-triggered motivational processes have been extensively studied. However, recent work has begun to examine the potential contribution of plasticity in these circuits to obesity. Despite the inclusion of women in human obesity studies examining neurobehavioral alterations in cue-triggered motivation, preclinical studies have focused mainly on male subjects

Apathy and impulsivity are common and often coexistent consequences of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). They increase patient morbidity and carer distress, but remain under-estimated and poorly treated. Recent trans-diagnostic approaches that span the spectrum of clinical presentations of FTLD and parkinsonism, indicate that apathy and impulsivity can be fractionated into multiple neuroanatomical

Defensive motivation, broadly defined as the orchestrated optimization of defensive functions, encapsulates core components of threat-related psychopathology. The exact relationship between defensive functions and stress-induced symptoms, however, is not entirely clear. Here we review how some of the most important behavioral and neurological findings related to threat-related disorders -- lowering

Anticipatory defensive responses to an aversive or harmful event depend on memories linking the event with the predictive environmental cues. Extensive evidence indicates that the central amygdala is essential for the acquisition and recall of such memories. The evidence came initially from studies that relied on traditional lesion and pharmacological techniques, and recently from studies in which

Pain has a useful protective role; through avoidance learning, it helps to decrease the probability of engaging in tissue-damaging, or otherwise dangerous experiences. In our modern society, the experience of acute post-surgical pain and the development of chronic pain states represent an unnecessary negative outcome. This has become an important health issue as more than 30% of the US population reports

Active avoidance is the prototypical paradigm for studying aversively-motivated instrumental behavior. However, avoidance research stalled amid heated theoretical debates and the hypothesis that active avoidance is essentially Pavlovian flight. Here I reconsider key "avoidance problems" and review neurobehavioral data collected with modern tools. Although the picture remains incomplete, these studies

When learning a new skill, even if we have been instructed exactly what to do, it is often necessary to practice for hours or even weeks before we achieve proficient and fluid performance. Practice has a multitude of effects on behavior, including increasing the speed of performance, rendering the practiced behavior habitual and reducing the cognitive load required to perform the task. These effects

Chronic pain is a debilitating condition that impacts tens of millions each year, resulting in lost wages for workers and exacting considerable costs in health care and rehabilitation. A thorough understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying pain and analgesia is critical to facilitate the development of therapeutic strategies and personalized medicine. Clinical and epidemiological studies report

A malignant brain tumor diagnosis is often accompanied with intense feelings and can be associated with psychosocial conditions including depression, anxiety, and/or increased distress levels. Previous work has highlighted the impact of uncontrolled psychological distress among brain tumor patients. Given the negative impact of maladaptive psychosocial and biobehavioral factors on normal immune system

Aggression is a crucial survival behavior: it is employed to defend territory, compete for food and mating opportunities, protect kin, and resolve disputes. Although widely differing in its behavioral expression, aggression is observed across many species. The neural substrates of aggression have been investigated for nearly a century and two highly conserved circuitries emerge as critical substrates

Mesolimbic dopaminergic function influences addiction through effects on reinforcement learning, decision-making, and impulsivity. This review covers sex differences in dopaminergic neurochemistry, their hormonal and genetic determinants, and how differences in dopaminergic tone interact with sex and/or ovarian hormone status to affect cognitive functions. Findings from research on cigarette smoking

The underrepresentation of female subjects in animal research has gained attention in recent years, and new NIH guidelines aim to address this problem early, at the grant proposal stage. Many researchers believe that use of females will hamper research because of the need for increased sample sizes, and increased costs. Here I review empirical research across multiple rodent species and traits that

The idea of targeting unconscious or implicit processes in psychological treatments is not new, but until recently it has not been easy to manipulate these processes without also engaging consciousness. Here we review how this is possible, using various modern cognitive neuroscience methods including a technique known as Decoded Neural-Reinforcement. We discuss the general advantages of this approach

Operant conditioning of the spinal stretch reflex (SSR) or its electrical analog, the H-reflex, is a valuable experimental paradigm for studying the acquisition and maintenance of a simple motor skill. The CNS substrate of this skill consists of brain and spinal cord plasticity that operates as a hierarchy-the learning experience induces plasticity in the brain that guides and maintains plasticity

Sex differences exist in the motivation for sexual behavior, food, parental care and motivation to take drugs. There are also sex differences in the likelihood of exhibiting motivational disorders such as anhedonia, depression, addictive behavior, and eating disorders. This brief review summaries recent studies on sex differences in all motivated behaviors in social and non-social contexts, focusing

Acute and chronic stress have dissociable effects on reward sensitivity, and a better understanding of these effects promises to elucidate the pathophysiology of stress-related disorders, particularly depression. Recent preclinical and human findings suggest that stress particularly affects reward anticipation; chronic stress perturbates dopamine signaling in the medial prefrontal cortex and ventral

Estrogens influence nearly every aspect of hippocampal function, including memory formation. Although this research has traditionally focused on ovariectomized females, more recent work is providing insights into the ways in which estrogens regulate hippocampal function in both sexes. This review provides an overview of estrogenic regulation of hippocampal function in female and male rodents, with

Relative to younger adults, older adults attend to and remember positive information more than negative information. This shift from a negativity bias in younger age to a preference for positive information in later life is termed the 'positivity effect.' Based on nearly two decades of research and recent evidence from neuroscience, we argue that the effect reflects age-related changes in motivation

Sexual differentiation of brain and behavior is largely a hormonally driven process occurring perinatally in rodents and prenatally in primates. Considered early life programming, this process occurs at a time when the brain is remarkably immature and often does not manifest until reproductive maturity, raising the question of how brief hormonal exposure early in life could have such an enduring effect

Affect and its object are separable, so that the same affective reaction can have different effects. Relevant principles from the affect-as-information approach include: (1) The impact of affect depends on implicit attributions -- what it appears to be about. (2) Affect is always taken to be about whatever is currently mentally accessible. Affective reactions can therefore serve as appraisals of objects

Life threatening situations as urgent as defending against a predator precludes the use of slow trial and error strategies. Natural selection has led to the evolution of a behavioral system that has 3 critical elements. 1) When it is activated it limits the behaviors available to the organism to a set of prewired responses that have proven over phylogeny to be effective at defense. 2) A rapid learning

A number of factors affect performance on tasks associated with creativity. Two pharmacological systems in particularly been identified as important for their impact on creativity, the noradrenergic system and the dopaminergic systems. Furthermore, stress is also established as an important factor impacting performance, most likely mediated by its effects on these neurotransmitter systems. Herein,

The striatal brain regions, including the caudate-putamen, nucleus accumbens core, and nucleus accumbens shell, mediate critical behavioral functions. These functions include but are not limited to motivated behavior, reward, learning, and sensorimotor function in both pathological and normal contexts. The phenotype and/or incidence of all of these behaviors either differ by sex or are sensitive to

Network neuroscience research is providing increasing specificity on the contribution of large-scale brain networks to creative cognition. Here, we summarize recent experimental work examining cognitive mechanisms of network interactions and correlational studies assessing network dynamics associated with individual creative abilities. Our review identifies three cognitive processes related to network

A key component of interacting with the world is how to direct ones' sensors so as to extract task-relevant information - a process referred to as active sensing. In this review, we present a framework for active sensing that forms a closed loop between an ideal observer, that extracts task-relevant information from a sequence of observations, and an ideal planner which specifies the actions that lead

Fear is considered an integral part of the brain's defensive mechanism that evolved to protect animals and humans from predation and other ecological threats. Hence, it is logical to study fear from the perspective of antipredator-survival behaviors and circuits by sampling a range of threatening situations that organisms are likely to encounter in the wild. In the past several decades, however, mainstream

Different kinds of decision making can be categorized by their differential effect on the agent's current and future states as well as the computational challenges they pose. Here, we draw a distinction between within-state and state-change decision-making, and propose that a dedicated decision mechanism exists in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) that is specialized for state-change decisions

Loss of interest in rewarding activities is a hallmark of many psychiatric disorders and may be relevant for neurodegenerative disorders and patients suffering from brain injury. There is increasing evidence that deficits in reward-related behaviour are more complex than previously described. The traditional view of anhedonia as 'the inability to experience pleasure' may be too limited to fully encompass

Chromatin-related phenomena regulate gene expression by altering the compaction and accessibility of DNA to relevant transcription factors, thus allowing every cell in the body to attain distinct identities and to function properly within a given cellular context. These processes occur not only in the developing central nervous system, but continue throughout the lifetime of a neuron to constantly

Recent work on sex differences in learning and memory has demonstrated that females and males differ in cognitive and behavioral strategies, as well as neural mechanisms required to learn, retrieve and express memory. Although our understanding of the mechanisms of memory is highly sophisticated, this work is based on male animals. As such, the study of female memory is narrowed to a comparison with

Apathy is the most common neuropsychiatric symptom in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The presence of apathy has been related to greater caregiver distress, decreased quality of life, and increased morbidity. Here we review the most recent studies on this neuropsychiatric syndrome, focusing on prevalence, impact on quality of life, behavioural and neuroimaging studies, and treatment options

Predicting the occurrence of future events from prior ones is vital for animal perception and cognition. Although how such sequence learning (a form of relational knowledge) relates to particular operations in language remains controversial, recent evidence shows that sequence learning is disrupted in frontal lobe damage associated with aphasia. Also, neural sequencing predictions at different temporal

While a long history of neuropsychological research places language function within a primarily left-lateralized frontotemporal system, recent neuroimaging work has extended this language network to include a number of regions traditionally thought of as 'domain-general'. These include dorsal frontal, parietal, and medial temporal lobe regions known to underpin cognitive functions such as attention

Sub-anesthetic ketamine produces rapid antidepressant effects in patients with bipolar and unipolar major depression where conventional monoaminergic-based antidepressant drugs have been ineffective or ridden with side effects. A single ketamine infusion can produce antidepressant effects lasting up to two weeks, and multiple ketamine infusions prolong this effect. Pre-clinical studies are underway

Mastering a motor skill is typified by a decrease in variability. However, variability is much more than the undesired signature of discoordination: structure in both its distributional properties and temporal sequence can reveal control priorities. Extending from the notion that signal-dependent noise corrupts information transmission in the neuromotor system, this review tracks more recent recognitions

There is general agreement that both motivation and cognitive control play critical roles in shaping goal-directed behavior, but only recently has scientific interest focused around the question of motivation-control interactions. Here we briefly survey this literature, organizing contemporary findings around three issues: 1) whether motivation preferentially impacts cognitive control processes, 2)

While sex differences in the peripheral immune response have been studied extensively, sex differences in the neuroimmune response, including glial activation and associated cytokine production in the brain, is a recently emerging field. Advances in our understanding of sex differences in the neuroimmune response have important implications for understanding how neural circuits are shaped during early

This commentary reviews the concept of experience-dependent epigenetic modifications in the CNS as a core mechanism underlying individuality and individuation at the behavioral level. I use the term individuation to refer to the underlying neurobiological processes that result in individuality, with the discussion focusing on individuality of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral repertoire. The review