Prompting social investigation.

A social memory pathway connecting the ventral hippocampus, the lateral septum and the ventral tegmental area helps to regulate how mice react to unknown individuals.

A neural mechanism for learning from delayed postingestive feedback.

Animals learn the value of foods based on their postingestive effects and thereby develop aversions to foods that are toxic and preferences to those that are nutritious. However, it remains unclear how the brain is able to assign credit to flavors experienced during a meal with postingestive feedback signals that can arise after a substantial delay. Here, we reveal an unexpected role for postingestive reactivation of neural flavor representations in this temporal credit assignment process.

Juvenile stress increases cocaine-induced impulsivity in female rats.

In humans, adverse childhood experiences are associated with an increased risk of developing a neuropsychiatric disorder. Changes in social behavior and cognitive function are hallmarks of numerous neuropsychiatric disorders. Here we examined the effects of exposure to variable stress during the juvenile period on social behavior, reward, and cognitive function (as measured in the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5CSRTT)) in rats.