title: Architectural Representation of Valence in the Limbic System.
abstract: In order to thrive, animals must be able to recognize aversive and appetitive stimuli within the environment and subsequently initiate appropriate behavioral responses. This assignment of positive or negative valence to a stimulus is a key feature of emotional processing, the neural substrates of which have been a topic of study for several decades. Until recently, the result of this work has been the identification of specific brain regions, such as the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc), as important to valence encoding. The advent of modern tools in neuroscience has allowed further dissection of these regions to identify specific populations of neurons signaling the valence of environmental stimuli. In this review, we focus upon recent work examining the mechanisms of valence encoding, and provide a model for the systematic investigation of valence within anatomically-, genetically-, and functionally defined populations of neurons.
authors.affiliation: Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.|Neuroscience Graduate Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Praneeth
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Namburi
authors.affiliation: Division of Basic Research, Department of Anesthesiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.|Washington University Pain Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.|Department of Neuroscience, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.
authors.forename: Ream
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Al-Hasani
authors.affiliation: Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Gwendolyn G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Calhoon
authors.affiliation: Division of Basic Research, Department of Anesthesiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.|Washington University Pain Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.|Department of Neuroscience, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.|Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.
authors.forename: Michael R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Bruchas
authors.affiliation: Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Kay M
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-2435-0182
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Tye
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008032:Limbic System / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology