Acute and Lifetime Stress and Psychotic Illness: The Roles of Reward and Salience Networks.

Affective reactions to acute stressors often evoke exacerbations of psychotic symptoms and sometimes de novo psychotic symptoms and initial psychotic episodes. Across the lifespan, affective reactions to acute stressors are enhanced by successive adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), in a process called "behavioral sensitization". The net effects of behavioral sensitization of acute stress responses are to alter responsivity to positive and negative feedback and to unexpected events, regardless of valence, leading to the maladaptive assignment of salience to stimuli and events.

Anterior Cingulate Cortex Signals Attention in a Social Paradigm that Manipulates Reward and Shock.

The ability to recognize emotions in others and adapt one's behavior accordingly is critical for functioning in any social context. This ability is impaired in several psychiatric disorders, such as autism and psychopathy. Recent work has identified the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) among other brain regions involved in this process.