Ventral in Biological News

Researchers shed new light on connection between brain and loneliness

... of Chicago. Researchers found that the ventral striatuma region of the brain associated with ... and Psychiatry at the University. The ventral striatum, which is critical to learning, is a key ... least likely to have strong activity in their ventral striata when shown pictures of people enjoying ...

James Briscoe awarded 2008 EMBO Gold Medal

... began to unravel the control mechanisms of neuronal cell identity in the ventral neural tube a research theme sustained in his own lab at NIMR since ... (Shh) to specify the position and subtype identity of neurons in the ventral spinal cord. "We want to understand how neurons - nerve cells are ...

The birth and death of dopamine neurons: A new model for neurodegeneration

... neurons in the midbrain. By defining precursors of dopamine neurons in the ventral midbrain, Kittappa et. al. have discovered that dopamine neurons are derived from organizer cells in the floor plate (the ventral cells of the neural tube and the embryonic foundation of the central ...

Translating the conversation between the brain and blood vessels

... that regulate breathing impact neurons that control blood pressure. The neurons that integrate these systems are in very close proximity in the ventral lateral medulla and play a role in affecting both breathing and blood pressure. This connection is intriguing because it raises the possibility that ...

Addiction: Insights from Parkinson's disease

... implicated in addiction appear to affect brain levels of dopamine. Studies show that that dopamine acts in an area of the brain known as the ventral striatum, which receives input from other areas such as the hippocampus and amygdala. It may be through this region that dopamine promotes addictive ...

A baby's smile is a natural high

... stimulated by the sight of their own babies were those associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine. Specifically, the areas associated included the ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra regions, the striatum, and frontal lobe regions involved in emotion processing, cognition and motor/behavioral ...

Are humans hardwired for fairness?

... anterior insula) was activated during unfair treatment. However, interestingly, they also found that regions associated with reward (including the ventral striatum) were activated during fair treatment even though there was no additional money to be gained. As reported in the April issue of the ...

Whirligig beetle gets rock 'n' roll legendary name

... According to the trio of researchers, the new species is unique among Indian Gyrinidae and Orectochilus Lacordaire, in general, since the ventral surfaces are white as the result of clear areas of cuticle allowing internal tissues to be visible. ...

Tastes great! Study shows brain's response to pleasing -- and changing -- tastes

... monitoring of an area of the brain known as the ventral pallidum. Located deep in the brain, it's a kind ... compared to the water or sugar water. Their ventral pallidum brain activity was also much lower in ... study was designed so that the signals from the ventral pallidum were only related to the "liking" ?or ...

How 'hot' emotional brain interferes with 'cool' processing

... the emotional distracters not only activated the ventral system, but also deactivated the dorsal regions. ... images produced greater activation of the ventral system and deactivation of the dorsal system than ... antidepressants influence the response of that ventral system. And what is particularly exciting is that ...

Female butterflies go for sparkle -- not size -- when choosing to mate

... carefully controlled tests on both the dorsal and ventral sides of wings, Robertson induced a dozen subtle ... None of the variations induced on the ventral side appeared to have any affect on the females' ... leading the researchers to conclude that the ventral side of the wing does not play a role in the ...

New understanding of jet lag

... The investigators found that the dorsal and ventral sections of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), ... time zones. The researchers found that the ventral part of the SCN, which is directly connected by a ... such as using a drug to enhance GABA, the ventral and dorsal parts of the central timekeeper could ...

How exactly does the brain control breathing?

... proposes that these nerve cells are located in a ventral area of the brainstem (the retrofacial region) ... called glutamate. Their close proximity to the ventral surface of the brain allows them to sense and ... Physiol 90.3, pg.259 Respiratory control by ventral surface chemoreceptor neurons in rats. Nature ...

After a time-shift, mixed signals from the circadian clock

... while another part of the clock, represented by a ventral (lower) group of cells, exhibited a distinct ... of the dorsal SCN while inhibiting neurons in the ventral SCN. Because GABA transmits information between the ventral and dorsal SCN, such differences in effect might ...

The influence of the menstrual cycle on the female brain

... as a neurotransmitter/neuromodulator. 2. Structures including the ventral striatum, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the orbitofrontal cortex. ... mainly activate a region involved in motivation for obtaining rewards, the ventral striatum, whereas in women, it is a region dealing with emotions, the ...

Pleasure and pain: Study shows brain's 'pleasure chemical' is involved in response to pain too

... dopamine was involved in the assessment of pain itself, while in the ventral area, or nucleus accumbens, it was related to the emotional experience of ... J. Scott, Ph.D., a graduate student at MBNI. "The dopamine system in the ventral basal ganglia may represent an important point of interaction between the ...

Love's all in the brain: fMRI study shows strong, lateralized reward, not sex, drive

... at a photo of his/her beloved, specific activation occurred in the right ventral tegmental area (VTA) and dorsal caudate body. These regions were ... pair-bonding in prairie voles. The fMRI images showed more activity in the ventral pallidum portion of the basal ganglia in people with longer romantic ...

Alcohol's effects on gene expression in the central nervous system

... Gene expression profiling in the nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex, and ventral tegmental areas show that distinct biological pathways are associated with ... # Intracranial self-administration of ethanol into the posterior ventral tegmental area (VTA) of alcohol-preferring rats produced results ...

Morphine makes lasting -- and surprising -- change in the brain

... system. "The persistence of the effect was stunning," Kauer said. "This is your brain on drugs." Kauer recorded the phenomenon in the ventral tegmental area, or VTA, a small section of the midbrain that is involved in the reward system that reinforces survival-boosting behaviors such as ...

UCLA: How does your brain respond when you think about gambling or taking risks?

... Regions that become more active as the amount increases are considered "reward centers" in the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum, Poldrack said. The researchers also found that reward centers in the brain respond not only when we actually receive rewards but also ...

Hormone linked to brain's cravings for food and other energy sources

... reward circuitry of the brain that regulates food cravings. According to lead author Tamas Horvath, components of the reward circuitry of the ventral tegmental area (VTA), may be responsible for overeating and addiction. "Targeting this region pharmacologically is an interesting tool to explore," ...

High dopamine transporter levels not correlated with ADHD

... PET scans revealed that ADHD subjects had significantly fewer dopamine transporters than control subjects in the nucleus accumbens, an area of the ventral striatum that is one of the main reward centers in the brain. In a dorsal striatum region known as the putamen, which plays an important role in ...

Leptin has powerful effect on reward center in the brain

... as well as in the hypothalamus, according to a Yale School of Medicine study in Neuron. "Finding that metabolic hormones directly regulate the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the mid-brain has profound implications for how researchers view the integration of metabolic signals in the brain," said the ...

Dissecting the machinery of nicotine's reward

... by using a harmless virus to reintroduce it back into the mice lacking it. They found that reintroduction in a specific region of the brain (the ventral tegmental area; VTA) was sufficient to restore the normal neuronal nicotine response. A prior study also showed that mice lacking the ß2 subunit also ...

Brain differences could explain why males and females experience pain relief differently

... of the brain called the periaqueductal gray (PAG). This region of the brain relays information regarding pain to another brain region, the rostral ventral medulla (RVM). This PAG-RVM circuit is the main pain circuit in the brain, and is responsible for the sensation of pain. Both narcotics and ...

Team discovers possible 'universal strategy' to combat addiction

... found that a naturally occurring enzyme known as PTEN acts on the part of the brain where many drugs of abuse exert their rewarding effects - the ventral tegmental area (VTA). "Our results suggest a potential universal strategy for treating drug addiction," Zhang says. "Most drugs of abuse act on ...

'Word-vision' brain area confirmed

... matter. The small size of the present lesion thus provides precious support to the idea of partial regional selectivity for word perception in the ventral cortex," they wrote. Importantly, the researchers observed that before the surgery, the patient could recognize long words as quickly as short ...

How the brain learns to become addicted

... peptides released by a brain center called the lateral hypothalamus. It was also known that orexins tend to activate circuitry in a region called the ventral tegmental area (VTA), known to be a critical site of neural adaptation, or plasticity, induced by addictive drugs. However, it wasn't known whether ...

Scientists crack code for motor neuron wiring

... neurons project into the limb; the divisional organization of motor neurons that determines whether motor neurons project to muscles in the dorsal or ventral halves of the limb; and finally, the motor neuron pool identity that governs the muscle target of each set of motor neurons. In a key set of ...

Grabbing addiction by the tail

... the researchers delivered the peptide directly to the nucleus accumbens and to another area of the brain involved in reward and motivation, the ventral tegmental area. The peptide reduced the rats' drug-seeking behavior only when injected into the nucleus accumbens, evidence that the structure is ...