Reward articles from across Nature Portfolio

In decision-making, choice stochasticity can arise at multiple stages in the brain. Here, the authors show that noise arising early and late relative to a nonlinear neural computation leads to opposing contextual effects on choice accuracy.

Neural circuit mechanisms underlying integrating information about reward across time are not fully understood. Here, the authors show that common outcome-integration signals from the medial prefrontal cortex and ventral hippocampus inputs interact in the nucleus accumbens to dynamically modulate task engagement.

A naturalistic threat–reward conflict reveals that dopamine dynamics in tail of the striatum in mice regulate not only avoidance of potential threats but also learning to overcome them.

Reward signaling via dopamine is most commonly thought of as acting through neurons expressing either D1 or D2 dopamine receptors. Enriquez-Traba et al. show that neurons in the ventral striatum co-express D1 and D3 receptors, which they use to signal dissociable aspects of reward.

The opioid abuse epidemic is a major health concern that requires new pain management strategies. Findings now show that suvorexant, a dual hypocretin receptor antagonist, reverses the anatomical and circuit alterations induced by opioids and decreases addictive behavior while maintaining the analgesic properties of the drugs.