Do Decision-Making Styles Predict Vagal Control? The Role of Resting Heart Rate Variability.

Decision-making styles are a habit-based propensity that drive behavior and affect daily life. and decision-making styles have been associated with good mental health. However, the underlying mechanisms are not clear.

Preference for Exercise vs. More Sedentary Reinforcers: Validation of an Animal Model of Tetrabenazine-Induced Anergia.

Physical activities can have intrinsic motivational or reinforcing properties. The choice to engage in voluntary physical activity is undertaken in relation to the selection of other alternatives, such as sedentary behaviors, drugs, or food intake. The mesolimbic dopamine (DA) system plays a critical role in behavioral activation or exertion of effort, and DA antagonism or depletion induces anergia in effort-based decision-making tasks.

Caffeine Modulates Food Intake Depending on the Context That Gives Access to Food: Comparison With Dopamine Depletion.

Caffeine is a methylxanthine consumed in different contexts to potentiate alertness and reduce fatigue. However, caffeine can induce anxiety at high doses. Caffeine is also a minor psychostimulant that seems to act as an appetite suppressant, but there are also reports indicating that it could stimulate appetite.

Individual differences in the energizing effects of caffeine on effort-based decision-making tests in rats.

Motivated behavior is characterized by activation and high work output. Nucleus accumbens (Nacb) modulates behavioral activation and effort-based decision-making. Caffeine is widely consumed because of its energizing properties.

Ethanol and Caffeine Effects on Social Interaction and Recognition in Mice: Involvement of Adenosine A and A Receptors.

Ethanol and caffeine are frequently consumed in combination and have opposite effects on the adenosine system: ethanol metabolism leads to an increase in adenosine levels, while caffeine is a non-selective adenosine A/A receptor antagonist. These receptors are highly expressed in striatum and olfactory tubercle, brain areas involved in exploration and social interaction in rodents. Ethanol modulates social interaction processes, but the role of adenosine in social behavior is still poorly understood.

Mesolimbic Dopamine and the Regulation of Motivated Behavior.

It has been known for some time that nucleus accumbens dopamine (DA) is involved in aspects of motivation , but theoretical approaches to understanding the functions of DA have continued to evolve based upon emerging data and novel concepts. Although it has become traditional to label DA neurons as "reward" neurons, the actual findings are more complicated than that, because they indicate that DA neurons can respond to a variety of motivationally significant stimuli. Moreover, it is important to distinguish between aspects of motivation that are differentially affected by dopaminergic manipulations.