To help remedy this gap, we review the literature on conditioning, with emphasis on appetitive conditioning. This review comprises three parts. First, we examine the different forms of conditioning. Second, we review the neural basis of appetitive conditioning, particularly from a functional neuroimaging perspective. And third, we demonstrate how perturbations in processes involved in appetitive conditioning can contribute to implicated psychopathologies and suggest neurobiological models underlying these pathologies.
The ultimate goal of this review is to stimulate new avenues of research that have direct links to molecular biology, and thus could prove to be invaluable to progress in the understanding and treatment of psychiatric disabilities.