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Brief Communication

Nature Neuroscience 11, 423–425 (1 April 2008) | doi:10.1038/nn2061

Emotional environments retune the valence of appetitive versus fearful functions in nucleus accumbens

Sheila M Reynolds & Kent C Berridge

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.