Cue reactivityCue reactivity is a type of learned response which is observed in individuals with an addiction and involves significant physiological and subjective reactions to presentations of drug-related stimuli (i.e., drug cues). In investigations of these reactions in people with substance use disorders, changes in self-reported drug craving, physiological responses, and drug use are monitored as they are exposed to drug-related cues (e.g., cigarettes, bottles of alcohol, drug paraphernalia) or drug-neutral cues (e.
Trace amineTrace amines are an endogenous group of trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR1) agonists – and hence, monoaminergic neuromodulators – that are structurally and metabolically related to classical monoamine neurotransmitters. Compared to the classical monoamines, they are present in trace concentrations. They are distributed heterogeneously throughout the mammalian brain and peripheral nervous tissues and exhibit high rates of metabolism.
Protein c-FosProtein c-Fos is a proto-oncogene that is the human homolog of the retroviral oncogene v-fos. It is encoded in humans by the FOS gene. It was first discovered in rat fibroblasts as the transforming gene of the FBJ MSV (Finkel–Biskis–Jinkins murine osteogenic sarcoma virus) (Curran and Tech, 1982). It is a part of a bigger Fos family of transcription factors which includes c-Fos, FosB, Fra-1 and Fra-2. It has been mapped to chromosome region 14q21→q31.
Salience (neuroscience)Salience (also called saliency) is that property by which some thing stands out. Salient events are an attentional mechanism by which organisms learn and survive; those organisms can focus their limited perceptual and cognitive resources on the pertinent (that is, salient) subset of the sensory data available to them. Saliency typically arises from contrasts between items and their neighborhood. They might be represented, for example, by a red dot surrounded by white dots, or by a flickering message indicator of an answering machine, or a loud noise in an otherwise quiet environment.
Conditioned place preferenceConditioned place preference (CPP) is a form of Pavlovian conditioning used to measure the motivational effects of objects or experiences. This motivation comes from the pleasurable aspect of the experience, so that the brain can be reminded of the context that surrounded the "encounter". By measuring the amount of time an animal spends in an area that has been associated with a stimulus, researchers can infer the animal's liking for the stimulus.
