About this Research Topic
An ongoing assessment of potentially harmful or beneficial stimuli is necessary for the well-being and self-preservation of all organisms. The relationship between these fundamental survival brain circuits is still not fully understood. For instance, it is not clear to what degree brain networks function independently in this context and/or whether they share the bulk of their substrates.
This issue aims to provide an update from the 2005 perspective of the first edition of publications in this Frontiers Topic Area, to gather further ideas, from non-human animal and human studies alike, on how basic evaluative (i.e. reward- and aversion-related) processing occurs in the brain, and to contribute further to our understanding of how this knowledge may yield better interpretations/insights of neural processing mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders.
All submissions should address aspects of reward- and/or aversion-related processing. Although any work in this vein is welcome, submissions addressing some of the following broad issues especially are encouraged:
1) Animal and/or human studies/reviews identifying cellular, regional, and/or network-level mechanisms aimed at understanding the interaction between basic reward- and aversion-related valuative processing;
2) Studies/reviews in animals/humans where the results may inform how dysfunctional evaluative processes relate to psychiatric disorders;
3) Approaches aimed at translating animal findings to humans, or vice versa, and discussing potential clinical relevance are also welcome.
4) Animal and/or human studies or reviews that take advantage of recent advances in machine-learning / AI techniques to answer questions in this area, including the use of predictive analytics and data-driven analyses.
5) Presentation of computational models that may advance our understanding of reward and aversion processes in this context.
The overall goal of this second edition is to summarize the interrelationships between aspects of aversion- and reward-related processing and to suggest how these findings might be linked to, and/or might help explain neuropsychiatric symptomatology. The inclusion of reviews, original research, and papers outlining new, testable, hypotheses are encouraged.
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
