Impaired motivation to seek reward (anhedonia) has been proposed to be caused by changes in the top-down (cortical) control of subcortical reward pathways. Here, Ferenczi et al. combine optogenetics with functional MRI and testing of reward-related behaviours to assess this idea. They show that, in rats, increased medial prefrontal cortex activity reduces the striatal blood oxygen level-dependent signal in response to midbrain dopamine neuron stimulation, alters functional interactions between cortical and limbic brain regions, and suppresses reward-related behaviours.
References
Ferenczi, E. A. et al. Prefrontal cortical regulation of brainwide circuit dynamics and reward-related behavior. Science 351, aac9698 (2016)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Whalley, K. Top-down control. Nat Rev Neurosci 17, 76 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2016.3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2016.3