The Nucleus Accumbens: An Interface Between Cognition, Emotion, and Action

Nearly 40 years of research on the function of the nucleus accumbens (NAc) has provided a wealth of information on its contributions to behavior but has also yielded controversies and misconceptions regarding these functions. A primary tenet of this review is that, rather than serving as a "reward" center, the NAc plays a key role in action selection, integrating cognitive and affective information processed by frontal and temporal lobe regions to augment the efficiency and vigor of appetitively or aversively motivated behaviors. Its involvement in these functions is most prominent when the appropriate course of action is ambiguous, uncertain, laden with distractors, or in a state of flux. To this end,…