Basolateral amygdala - nucleus accumbens circuitry regulates optimal cue-guided risk/reward decision making.

Maladaptive decision making is a characteristic feature of substance use disorder and pathological gambling. Studies in humans and animals have implicated neural circuits that include the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc) in facilitating risk/reward decision making. However, the preclinical literature has focussed primarily on situations where animals use internally-generated information to adapt to changes in reward likelihood, whereas many real-life situations require the use of external stimuli to facilitate context-appropriate behavior.