Tuesdays with Pavlov: 2012 Edition

New look and fresh start

After a prolonged absence on the blogosphere, Tuesdays with Pavlov (TWP) is making a triumphant and invigorated return. I have made significant changes to both the look and scope of TWP. These changes are intended to give the blog a much more clear and concise focus. I have decided to stick with my original Blogger hosting for the time being, and am grateful for the design inspiration they have provided.

Content

The primary goal of TWP is to review and discuss important new publications in the field of neuroscience and psychology. In keeping with both the name and journal club style inspiration of the blog, I will publish a weekly review of a recent peer-reviewed article. These articles will be selected through many means. Obviously, I will choose papers and topics that are of significant interest to myself, but I would also like to encourage readers to suggest potential papers for review, or even submit reviews themselves. 

In addition to the primary Tuesday reviews, I will make a habit of providing brief, but hopefully insightful commentary on articles, blog posts, tweets, facebook posts, or any other source that evokes a significant reaction from me.

I look forward to a more focused and productive blogging experience, which will yield many happy scientific returns. Thank you for reading!

TWP: 6.9.11

Hello everyone. This week we will be reading a recent paper from the Robbins group, examining subregion differences in OFC function.

Please come at noon on Thursday at the usual location.

Mar et al. (2011) Dissociable effects of lesions to orbitofrontal cortex subregions on impulsive choice in the rat. Journal of Neuroscience. (31)17:6398-6404

TWP: 5.27.11

This week in TWP we will be reading an interesting paper by Daniel Lodge concerning the regulation of dopamine neuron activity by different regions of the frontal cortex.

Please join us on Friday at noon at the usual location.

Lodge, DJ. (2011) The medial prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices differentially regulate dopamine system function. Neuropsychopharmacology 36, 1227-1236

TWP: 5.12.11

This week we will be reading a new paper from the Carelli lab. It is an interesting story about Pavlovian-to-Instrumental transfer and its associated correlates. Should be an interesting discussion.

Join us at noon on Thursday.

Saddoris M., Stamatakis A., Carelli R. (2011) Neural correlates of Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer in the nucleus accumbens shell are selectively potentiated following cocaine self-administration European Journal of Neuroscience

TWP: 5.4.11

This week we will be reading a recent paper from Nature Neuroscience from the lab of Richard Palmiter.

It is examining dopamine neuron activation and aversive processing. It should be an interesting discussion. See you at noon!

Zweifel L., et al. (2011) Activation of dopamine neurons is critical for aversive conditioning and prevention of generalized anxiety Nature Neuroscience

TWP: 4.14.11

This week in TWP we will be reading a 2010 paper from the lab of Wolfram Schultz examining amygdala neurophysiology.

Please join in at noon on thursday in the usual location.

Bermudez and Schultz. (2010) Responses of amygdala neurons to positive reward-predicting stimuli depend background reward (contingency) rather than stimulus-reward pairing (contiguity)

TWP: 4.7.11

Hello everyone. This week we will be reading a paper from the lab of Josh Berke, examining interneuron activity within the striatum, during a simple choice task.

Please join us on Thursday at noon at the normal location.

Gage et al. (2010) Selective activation of striatal fast-spiking interneurons during choice execution. Neuron. 67(3): 466-479