Assessing the role of corticostriatal interactions in appetitive and aversive conditioning- relevance to addiction and schizophrenia

哺乳动物的大脑能够处理和保留大量的新信息，通过在环境中的中性刺激与动机重要事件之间形成有意义的关系。一旦形成，这些联想（如记忆）就能对我们的思想、情绪、行动和决定产生强大的影响，有时甚至会导致行为的异常表现，如成瘾、精神分裂症或恐惧症。因此，至关重要的是，研究的方向是进一步了解大脑是如何组织的，以优化关联信息获取的调节，以及随后对行为输出的控制。

The mammalian brain is capable of processing and retaining a large amount of new information, by forming meaningful relationships between neutral stimuli in the environment with motivationally significant events. Once formed, these associations (as memories) can exert a powerful influence over our thoughts, emotions, actions, and decisions, sometimes to the extent that they can give rise to abnormal manifestations of behaviour, as seen in addiction, schizophrenia, or phobia. Thus, it is crucial that research is directed towards furthering our understanding of how the brain is organized to optimize the regulation of associative information acquisition, and its subsequent control over behavioural output.