Anatomy and Cell Biology 4451F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Substantia Nigra, Striatum, Nigrostriatal Pathway
6 Jun 2019
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There are 3 main pathways critical in reward related learning: Ventral tagmental area (vta: rich in dopaminergic neurons, heavily implicated in addiction and reward processing, pathways, 1. Mesocorticol pathway: starts in the mesencelphaolon (midbrain) and projects to the prefrontal cortex: travels from the vta prefrontal cortex. Mesolimbic pathway: vta amygdala + nucleus accumbens. It is flexible - if relying on this, you will have unregulated reward seeking behaviors: primitive pathway evolved in the hedonic aspects of reward, 3. It makes sense that the reward circuitry and the circuit for coordinating movement reward, we would move very little. It is important to regulate reward seeking behavior because if we are governed by the principle of reward, we will be in trouble. We need to regulate reward seeking behavior to accomplish our overall goals. Sometimes it is best to suppress reward seeking behavior in face of risk. Temporal discounting in action (shoda et. al, 1990)
