title: Neurobiology of aversive states.
abstract: Hoebel and colleagues are often known as students of reward and how it is coded in the CNS. This article, however, attempts to focus on the significant advances by Hoebel and others in dissecting out behavioral components of distinct aversive states and in understanding the neurobiology of aversion and the link between aversive states and addictive behaviors. Reward and aversion are not necessarily dichotomous and may reflect an affective continuum contingent upon environmental conditions. Descriptive and mechanistic studies pioneered by Bart Hoebel have demonstrated that the shift in the reward-aversion spectrum may be, in part, a result of changes in central dopamine/acetylcholine ratio, particularly in the nucleus accumbens. The path to aversion appears to include a specific neurochemical signature: reduced dopamine release and increased acetylcholine release in "reward centers" of the brain. Opioid receptors may have a neuromodulatory role on both of these neurotransmitters.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Physiology and Pharmacology, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02111, United States.
authors.forename: Erin N
authors.initials: EN
authors.lastname: Umberg
authors.forename: Emmanuel N
authors.initials: EN
authors.lastname: Pothos
mesh_terms: D000109:Acetylcholine / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism; D005508:Food Deprivation / Q000502:physiology; D009714:Nucleus Accumbens / Q000502:physiology*; D018847:Opioid Peptides / Q000378:metabolism; D012201:Reward
chemical_list: D018847:Opioid Peptides; D000109:Acetylcholine; D004298:Dopamine