Pain relief produces negative reinforcement through activation of mesolimbic reward-valuation circuitry.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Navratilova E
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3528534 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Pain relief produces negative reinforcement through activation of mesolimbic reward-valuation circuitry.
Navratilova Edita E Xie Jennifer Y JY Okun Alec A Qu Chaoling C Eyde Nathan N Ci Shuang S Ossipov Michael H MH King Tamara T Fields Howard L HL Porreca Frank F
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20121126 50
Relief of pain is rewarding. Using a model of experimental postsurgical pain we show that blockade of afferent input from the injury with local anesthetic elicits conditioned place preference, activates ventral tegmental dopaminergic cells, and increases dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. Importantly, place preference is associated with increased activity in midbrain dopaminergic neurons and blocked by dopamine antagonists injected into the nucleus accumbens. The data directly support th ...[more]
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