Brief Communication abstract
Nature Neuroscience 11, 423 - 425 (2008)
Published online: 16 March 2008 | doi:10.1038/nn2061
Emotional environments retune the valence of appetitive versus fearful functions in nucleus accumbens
Sheila M Reynolds1 & Kent C Berridge1
The nucleus accumbens mediates both appetitive motivation for rewards and fearful motivation toward threats, which are generated in part by glutamate-related circuits organized in a keyboard fashion. At rostral sites of the medial shell, localized glutamate disruptions typically generate intense appetitive behaviors in rats, but the disruption incrementally generates fearful behaviors as microinjection sites move more caudally. We found that exposure to stressful environments caused caudal fear-generating zones to expand rostrally, filling 
90% of the shell. Conversely, a preferred home environment caused fear-generating zones to shrink and appetitive-generating zones to expand caudally, filling 90% of the shell. Thus, the emotional environments retuned the generation of motivation in corticolimbic circuits.
- Department of Psychology, 525 E. University Avenue, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1109, USA.
Correspondence to: Kent C Berridge1 e-mail: berridge@umich.edu
Correspondence to: Sheila M Reynolds1 e-mail: sheilar@umich.edu
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