食物奖赏和渴求行为相关的大鼠左侧眶额叶皮质Delta频段脑电活动(英文）

眶额叶皮质与中脑边缘多巴胺奖赏系统有着复杂的相互纤维联系。先前的研究探讨了药物成瘾过程中眶额叶皮质的脑电活动。在本实验中,将探讨食物奖赏和渴求过程中该皮质的脑电活动。实验采用了两个环境：对照环境和食物刺激相关的环境。首先,训练大鼠在食物刺激相关的环境中吃巧克力花生豆,而后在该环境中设置两种不同的刺激方式：能看到和闻到但不能吃到(渴求实验),或者仍旧可以吃到巧克力花生豆（奖赏实验）;同时进行左侧眶额叶皮质的脑电记录。结果发现,在食物刺激相关的环境中大鼠Delta频段（2－4 Hz）的脑电活动与食物刺激显著相关,此外,与在对照环境中相比,其相对功率在食物渴求时下降而在食物奖赏时升高。本实验表明,食物相关的奖励可以改变大鼠眶额叶皮质的脑电活动,而且,Delta频段的脑电活动能够作为监测该奖励的一个指标。     

大鼠眶额叶皮质受损破坏新异性探索行为

利用旷场测试和Y-迷宫测试两种行为模型检测了双侧眶额叶（orbitofrontal cortex, OFC）电损伤或假损伤雄性SD大鼠的新异性探索行为, 探讨了OFC在大鼠探索新异环境中的作用。旷场测试的结果发现,OFC损伤大鼠的行走距离和直立次数较假损组有明显降低;同时,在Y-迷宫测试中与假损伤组大鼠相比,OFC损伤大鼠在新异臂的访问时间和穿梭次数明显降低。提示眶额叶皮质在大鼠新异性探索行为中起着重要作用。     

杏仁核点燃模型癫痫样放电传播途径研究

目的 :探讨杏仁核点燃模型癫痫样放电的传播途径。方法 :选择健康Wistar大鼠 3 0只以电刺激杏仁核的方式制作杏仁核点燃癫痫模型 ,于右侧杏仁核、左侧海马及右侧额叶皮质埋植电极记录脑电活动 ,观察电刺激杏仁核时在杏仁核、海马及额叶皮质出现癫痫样放电的潜伏期、最低刺激强度及癫痫样放电的持续时间。结果 :杏仁核出现癫痫样放电时 ,海马及皮质均未记录到癫痫样放电。而当杏仁核、海马及皮质三处出现癫痫样放电时的最低刺激强度依次增大 ,潜伏期依次延长 ,海马处癫痫样放电的持续时间最长。结论 :杏仁核点燃模型癫痫样放电可能由杏仁核经海马传至皮层 ,海马可能为癫痫样放电传播的重要结构     

光纤成像技术记录小鼠眶额皮层奖赏相关神经元活性的应用

目的:探讨光纤成像技术用于记录小鼠眶额皮层奖赏相关神经元活性变化的可行性。方法:应用光纤成像的方法记录自由活动小鼠在饮用糖水时,携带有钙离子荧光探针(GCaMP6m)的眶额皮层奖赏相关神经元的活性。首先,在小鼠的眶额皮层注射携带GCaMP6m的腺相关病毒,同时在相应位点植入提前做好的光纤陶瓷插芯;等待小鼠术后恢复,病毒表达2周。然后在记录前,给予小鼠36小时禁水处理并运用光纤成像记录接受糖水刺激的小鼠眶额皮层锥体神经元的反应活性。最后,记录数据读入matlab软件进行数据分析并对小鼠进行心脏灌流、取脑、脑组织冰冻切片并显微荧光成像观察记录位点是否正确,病毒是否正常表达。结果:成功记录到对小鼠施加糖水刺激时,其眶额皮层内与奖赏相关的神经元活性变化。数据分析结果用热度图和事件相关的平均线图来表示。组织学切片及成像结果证实记录位点正确,病毒正常表达。结论:光纤成像的记录方法可以监测自由活动的小鼠在饮用糖水时眶额皮层内奖赏相关神经元活性的变化。     

电针对实验性癫痫发作的影响：脑电的功率谱分析

以电惊厥和青霉素致痫作为实验性癲痫的动物模型。采用脑电的计算机功率谱分析技术,研究了电针作用于发作过程中脑电各频段功率百分比的变化。在安静的大鼠,脑电以δ和θ频段为主,其功率主峰在δ频段。青霉素致痫和电惊厥使δ频段功率百分比下降,α和β频段功率百分比增加,主功率频段右移,总功率亦大大增强。本实验采用的电针对背景脑电活动没有明显影响。而电针加电惊厥或青霉素致痫,δ频段功率百分比复又增加,α和β频段功率百分比则下降,主功率频段又回到δ频段,总功率也显著减少。压缩功率谱阵图直观地显示了这种变化。结果提示,电针可使大鼠脑电出现同步化趋势,可能是加强了脑的抑制过程,从而抑制了癲痫发作的。     

跨颅电刺激对大鼠抑郁症的治疗作用

目的：探讨跨颅电刺激对大鼠抑郁症的治疗作用。方法：跨颅电刺激抑郁症大鼠左侧前额叶皮层,敞箱实验测定大鼠行为学变化,荧光法测定单胺类递质含量的变化。结果：跨颅直流电和低频脉冲电刺激后,大鼠敞箱实验中垂直和水平运动得分均较模型组显著升高（P〈0.05）;且大鼠左侧前额叶皮层和海马5-HT、NE含量较模型组显著升高（P〈0.05）,而前额叶皮层DA含量无显著变化（P〉0.05）。结论：直流电和低频脉冲电跨颅刺激左侧前额叶皮层,对抑郁症均有显著治疗作用。     

p63和p63参与p53依赖的细胞凋亡过程

人们通常用经典的操作式学习方法来训练动物的行为 ,使动物学会根据外部信号 (如声音 )产生特定的行为反应 ,以获取奖赏 (如食物 )。而本文的作者用脑内植入微电极进行脑区刺激的方法教会动物如何学习 ,可以去除用来产生信号和奖赏的外部环境对实验的限制。这一动物模型使操作者能远距离地指挥动物的行为 ,很像控制智能机器人的方法。电刺激能否产生等同于信号或奖赏的效应 ,取决于它所刺激的脑区。作者在自由活动大鼠的躯体感觉皮层 (ＳＩ)左右两侧胡须代表区和内侧前脑束 (ＭＦＢ)内植入电极加以刺激 ,以产生信号和奖赏效应 ,据此准确地指…     

多巴胺D2受体拮抗剂、激动剂对SD大鼠条件化位置偏好的影响

通过慢性吗啡处理方式建立起SD大鼠吗啡依赖的条件化位置偏好(CPP)模型,用行为学手段研究多巴胺(DA)D2受体拮抗剂及激动剂对SD大鼠CPP的影响,探讨眶额叶DAD2受体在阿片精神依赖中的作用。通过腹腔注射吗啡同环境因素相结合,建立大鼠吗啡依赖的CPP模型;采用局部脑内微量注射法向额叶注射DAD2受体拮抗剂或激动剂或盐水(对照组),以得到SD大鼠在戒断期间的CPP的时间数据。CPP显示DAD2受体拮抗剂组与对照组相比,从戒断第2天起,前者表现出更明显的CPP增加现象,差异显著(P<0·05)。而DAD2受体激动剂组与对照组相比无显著差异(P>0·05)。采用腹腔小剂量注射吗啡,成功地建立了吗啡依赖SD大鼠的CPP模型;眶额叶微量注射DAD2受体拮抗剂增加了CPP时间,提示眶额叶多巴胺系统在吗啡依赖的过程中有着较为重要的作用;也提示了对于已经成瘾的动物,损伤其眶额叶,会使药物渴求增强。因而提示对于药物依赖患者进行手术干预治疗要极其慎重。     

吗啡对猕猴腹侧前额叶脑电γ振荡的影响

为了从神经电生理的角度提供吗啡对腹侧前额叶脑功能影响的证据,通过电生理记录分析技术获取了肌肉注射吗啡（0、0．5、1．6、5．0和8．0mg／kg）后,猕猴腹侧前额叶皮质脑电γ振荡活动的动态变化。结果发现：吗啡导致腹侧前额叶脑电γ振荡功率下降,而且这种影响具有明显的负性量效关系。以上结果说明腹侧前额叶的γ振荡活动与吗啡摄入有密切的关系,并提示脑电γ振荡活动也许可以反映吗啡成瘾的情况。     

巴氯芬注射后大鼠皮层脑电变化与年龄的相关性

巴氯芬是伽马氨基丁酸B型受体的一种选择性激动剂,在镇痛、药物成瘾等治疗中具有重要的生物学功能.在动物的老化过程中,伽马氨基丁酸能所介导的神经传导可能了发生改变.本文旨在探讨巴氯芬所诱导的皮层脑电活动是否具有年龄上的差异.在巴氯芬注射（5mg/kg）前后,分别采集青年（3～4月龄）和老年（15～17月龄）大鼠的皮层脑电图,分析脑电绝对功率和相对功率在5个频段上（δ：2～4Hz;θ：4～8Hz;α：8～12Hz;β：12～20Hz;γ：20～100Hz）与年龄相关的差异.结果发现,在巴氯芬注射前,老年大鼠β频段脑电相对功率显著升高.在巴氯芬注射后,两个年龄段大鼠δ频段脑电相对功率增加,但老年大鼠增加较慢.此外,青年和老年大鼠所有频段脑电绝对功率未出现统计学差异.本研究揭示,巴氯芬诱导的大鼠皮层脑电活动具有年龄上的差异,提示老化可能影响伽马氨基丁酸B型受体介导的神经传导.     

Ghrelin modulates brain activity in areas that control appetitive behavior

Feeding behavior is often separated into homeostatic and hedonic components. Hedonic feeding, which can be triggered by visual or olfactory food cues, involves brain regions that play a role in reward and motivation, while homeostatic feeding is thought to be under the control of circulating hormones acting primarily on the hypothalamus. Ghrelin is a peptide hormone secreted by the gut that causes hunger and food consumption. Here, we show that ghrelin administered intravenously to healthy volunteers during functional magnetic resonance imaging increased the neural response to food pictures in regions of the brain, including the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior insula, and striatum, implicated in encoding the incentive value of food cues. The effects of ghrelin on the amygdala and OFC response were correlated with self-rated hunger ratings. This demonstrates that metabolic signals such as ghrelin may favor food consumption by enhancing the hedonic and incentive responses to food-related cues.     

A general method for evaluating incubation of sucrose craving in rats

For someone on a food-restricted diet, food craving in response to food-paired cues may serve as a key behavioral transition point between abstinence and relapse to food taking. Food craving conceptualized in this way is akin to drug craving in response to drug-paired cues. A rich literature has been developed around understanding the behavioral and neurobiological determinants of drug craving; we and others have been focusing recently on translating techniques from basic addiction research to better understand addiction-like behaviors related to food. As done in previous studies of drug craving, we examine sucrose craving behavior by utilizing a rat model of relapse. In this model, rats self-administer either drug or food in sessions over several days. In a session, lever responding delivers the reward along with a tone+light stimulus. Craving behavior is then operationally defined as responding in a subsequent session where the reward is not available. Rats will reliably respond for the tone+light stimulus, likely due to its acquired conditioned reinforcing properties. This behavior is sometimes referred to as sucrose seeking or cue reactivity. In the present discussion we will use the term "sucrose craving" to subsume both of these constructs. In the past decade, we have focused on how the length of time following reward self-administration influences reward craving. Interestingly, rats increase responding for the reward-paired cue over the course of several weeks of a period of forced-abstinence. This "incubation of craving" is observed in rats that have self-administered either food or drugs of abuse. This time-dependent increase in craving we have identified in the animal model may have great potential relevance to human drug and food addiction behaviors. Here we present a protocol for assessing incubation of sucrose craving in rats. Variants of the procedure will be indicated where craving is assessed as responding for a discrete sucrose-paired cue following extinction of lever pressing within the sucrose self-administration context (Extinction without cues) or as responding for sucrose-paired cues in a general extinction context (Extinction with cues).     

Attentional bias to food images associated with elevated weight and future weight gain: an fMRI study

Behavioral studies reveal that obese vs. lean individuals show attentional bias to food stimuli. Yet research has not investigated this relation using objective brain imaging or tested whether attentional bias to food stimuli predicts future weight gain, which are important aims given the prominence of food cues in the environment. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine attentional bias in 35 adolescent girls ranging from lean to obese using an attention network task involving food and neutral stimuli. BMI correlated positively with speed of behavioral response to both appetizing food stimuli and unappetizing food stimuli, but not to neutral stimuli. BMI correlated positively with activation in brain regions related to attention and food reward, including the anterior insula/frontal operculum, lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), and superior parietal lobe, during initial orientation to food cues. BMI also correlated with greater activation in the anterior insula/frontal operculum during reallocation of attention to appetizing food images and with weaker activation in the medial OFC and ventral pallidum during reallocation of attention to unappetizing food images. Greater lateral OFC activation during initial orientation to appetizing food cues predicted future increases in BMI. Results indicate that overweight is related to greater attentional bias to food cues and that youth who show elevated reward circuitry responsivity during food cue exposure are at increased risk for weight gain.     

Gender and weight shape brain dynamics during food viewing

Hemodynamic imaging results have associated both gender and body weight to variation in brain responses to food-related information. However, the spatio-temporal brain dynamics of gender-related and weight-wise modulations in food discrimination still remain to be elucidated. We analyzed visual evoked potentials (VEPs) while normal-weighted men (n = 12) and women (n = 12) categorized photographs of energy-dense foods and non-food kitchen utensils. VEP analyses showed that food categorization is influenced by gender as early as 170 ms after image onset. Moreover, the female VEP pattern to food categorization co-varied with participants' body weight. Estimations of the neural generator activity over the time interval of VEP modulations (i.e. by means of a distributed linear inverse solution [LAURA]) revealed alterations in prefrontal and temporo-parietal source activity as a function of image category and participants' gender. However, only neural source activity for female responses during food viewing was negatively correlated with body-mass index (BMI) over the respective time interval. Women showed decreased neural source activity particularly in ventral prefrontal brain regions when viewing food, but not non-food objects, while no such associations were apparent in male responses to food and non-food viewing. Our study thus indicates that gender influences are already apparent during initial stages of food-related object categorization, with small variations in body weight modulating electrophysiological responses especially in women and in brain areas implicated in food reward valuation and intake control. These findings extend recent reports on prefrontal reward and control circuit responsiveness to food cues and the potential role of this reactivity pattern in the susceptibility to weight gain.     

Human processing of behaviorally relevant and irrelevant absence of expected rewards: a high-resolution ERP study

Acute lesions of the posterior medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in humans may induce a state of reality confusion marked by confabulation, disorientation, and currently inappropriate actions. This clinical state is strongly associated with an inability to abandon previously valid anticipations, that is, extinction capacity. In healthy subjects, the filtering of memories according to their relation with ongoing reality is associated with activity in posterior medial OFC (area 13) and electrophysiologically expressed at 220-300 ms. These observations indicate that the human OFC also functions as a generic reality monitoring system. For this function, it is presumably more important for the OFC to evaluate the current behavioral appropriateness of anticipations rather than their hedonic value. In the present study, we put this hypothesis to the test. Participants performed a reversal learning task with intermittent absence of reward delivery. High-density evoked potential analysis showed that the omission of expected reward induced a specific electrocortical response in trials signaling the necessity to abandon the hitherto reward predicting choice, but not when omission of reward had no such connotation. This processing difference occurred at 200-300 ms. Source estimation using inverse solution analysis indicated that it emanated from the posterior medial OFC. We suggest that the human brain uses this signal from the OFC to keep thought and behavior in phase with reality.     

A functional difference in information processing between orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum during decision-making behaviour

Both orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and ventral striatum (vStr) have been identified as key structures that represent information about value in decision-making tasks. However, the dynamics of how this information is processed are not yet understood. We recorded ensembles of cells from OFC and vStr in rats engaged in the spatial adjusting delay-discounting task, a decision-making task that involves a trade-off between delay to and magnitude of reward. Ventral striatal neural activity signalled information about reward before the rat''s decision, whereas such reward-related signals were absent in OFC until after the animal had committed to its decision. These data support models in which vStr is directly involved in action selection, but OFC processes decision-related information afterwards that can be used to compare the predicted and actual consequences of behaviour.     

Behavioral consequences of exposure to a high fat diet during the post-weaning period in rats

We explored the impact of exposure to an obesogenic diet (High Fat–High Sucrose; HFS) during the post-weaning period on sweet preference and behaviors linked to reward and anxiety. All rats were fed chow. In addition a HFS-transient group had access to this diet for 10 days from post-natal (PN) day 22 and a HFS-continuous group continued access until adult. Behavioral tests were conducted immediately after PN 32 (adolescence) or after PN 60 (adult) and included: the condition place preference (CPP) test for chocolate, sugar and saccharin preference (anhedonia), the elevated plus maze (anxiety-like behavior) and the locomotor response to quinpirole in the open field. Behavior was unaltered in adult rats in the HFS-transient group, suggesting that a short exposure to this obesogenic food does not induce long-term effects in food preferences, reward perception and value of palatable food, anxiety or locomotor activity. Nevertheless, rats that continued to have access to HFS ate less chocolate during CPP training and consumed less saccharin and sucrose when tested in adolescence, effects that were attenuated when these rats became adult. Moreover, behavioral effects linked to transient HFS exposure in adolescence were not sustained if the rats did not remain on that diet until adult. Collectively our data demonstrate that exposure to fat and sucrose in adolescence can induce immediate reward hypofunction after only 10 days on the diet. Moreover, this effect is attenuated when the diet is extended until the adult period, and completely reversed when the HFS diet is removed.     

Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans

A key challenge in studying reward processing in humans is to go beyond subjective self-report measures and quantify different aspects of reward such as hedonics, motivation, and goal value in more objective ways. This is particularly relevant for the understanding of overeating and obesity as well as their potential treatments. In this paper are described a set of measures of food-related motivation using handgrip force as a motivational measure. These methods can be used to examine changes in food related motivation with metabolic (satiety) and pharmacological manipulations and can be used to evaluate interventions targeted at overeating and obesity. However to understand food-related decision making in the complex food environment it is essential to be able to ascertain the reward goal values that guide the decisions and behavioral choices that people make. These values are hidden but it is possible to ascertain them more objectively using metrics such as the willingness to pay and a method for this is described. Both these sets of methods provide quantitative measures of motivation and goal value that can be compared within and between individuals.     

New derivatives of argininosuccinic acid in the urine of a patient with argininosuccinicaciduria

1. The relationships between nutritional state, lipoprotein lipase activity in epididymal fat-pads, and the concentrations of glucose, insulin and unesterified fatty acids in the plasma were studied in rats that had been adapted for 3 weeks to one of two controlled feeding schedules. In one of these, rats had access to food for 14h during each 24h period, and in the other, they had access to food for 14h during each 48h period. Groups of animals were killed at different times during the 14h when they had access to food and during the following period when they were deprived of food. 2. Low lipoprotein lipase activity, low concentrations of plasma glucose and insulin and high concentrations of plasma unesterified fatty acids were found in rats deprived of food for 34h. Feeding resulted in increases in lipoprotein lipase activity and in the concentrations of glucose and insulin in the plasma. Enzyme activity continued to increase during the first 6-9h of the feeding period. 3. After adapted rats had been deprived of food for 12-16h there was a marked and unexpected increase in lipoprotein lipase activity; this occurred even when the rats were kept in an isolated environment. 4. The findings suggest that factors other than the absolute concentrations of insulin and glucose in the blood can exert a considerable influence on lipoprotein lipase activity in the epididymal fat-pad of a rat.     

Common Neural Mechanisms Underlying Reversal Learning by Reward and Punishment

Impairments in flexible goal-directed decisions, often examined by reversal learning, are associated with behavioral abnormalities characterized by impulsiveness and disinhibition. Although the lateral orbital frontal cortex (OFC) has been consistently implicated in reversal learning, it is still unclear whether this region is involved in negative feedback processing, behavioral control, or both, and whether reward and punishment might have different effects on lateral OFC involvement. Using a relatively large sample (N = 47), and a categorical learning task with either monetary reward or moderate electric shock as feedback, we found overlapping activations in the right lateral OFC (and adjacent insula) for reward and punishment reversal learning when comparing correct reversal trials with correct acquisition trials, whereas we found overlapping activations in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) when negative feedback signaled contingency change. The right lateral OFC and DLPFC also showed greater sensitivity to punishment than did their left homologues, indicating an asymmetry in how punishment is processed. We propose that the right lateral OFC and anterior insula are important for transforming affective feedback to behavioral adjustment, whereas the right DLPFC is involved in higher level attention control. These results provide insight into the neural mechanisms of reversal learning and behavioral flexibility, which can be leveraged to understand risky behaviors among vulnerable populations.