Neuropharmacological Basis of Reward

This volume is devoted to the major advances in reinforcement and behaviour. Recent years have witnessed an explosive growth of neuroscience research. Behind this rapid development is a major, implicit desire to account for psychological and behavioural phenomena in ways which can be related directly to functions of the brain. Consequently, substantial categories of behaviours and the concepts used by psychologists to account for the expression of behavioural responses have been brought within the scope of neurobiological inquiry. The contributors, all psysiological psychologists or behavioural pharmacologists, have analyzed research on drugs, brain neurotransmitters and reinforcement in animals. The book documents convergent evidence that implicates the nucleus accumbens and its dopaminergic afferents in reward. Controversial themes include the identity of the neurons mediating intracranial self-stimulation, the site(s) where opiate drugs modulate dopamine-medical effects on reinforcement and whether or not non-dopaminergic neurons can independently mediate reinforcement. New technical advances such as conditioned place preferences, intracranial microinjection and self-administration of drugs and new techniques for measuring the specificity of drug effects on reinforcement are explained and future research directions are outlined.Table of ContentJeffrey M. Liebman: Introduction; James R. Stellar & Matthew B. Rice: Pharmacological basis of intracranial self-stimulation reward; Anthony G. Phillips & Hans C. Fibiger: Neuroanatomical bases of intracranial self-stimuation: untangling the Gordian knot; Peter Shizgal & Beverly Murray: Neuronal basis of intracranial self-stimulation; Johnathon L. Katz: Drugs as reinforcers: pharmacological and behavioural factors; George F. Koob & Nick E. Goeders: Neuroanatomical substrates of drug self-administration; Geoffrey D. Carr, Hans C. Fibiger, & Anthony G. Phillips: Conditioned place preference as a measure of drug reward; C.M. Bradshaw & E. Szabadi: Central neurotransmitter systems and the control of operant behaviour by 'natural' positive reinforcers; Roy A. Wise: The brain and reward; Index