In this project, we aimed to further investigate and specify the role of the mesolimbic system in processing aversive events. We used a variety of behavioral paradigms, MEG, iEEG and fMRI to show that (a) anticipation of aversive events recruits the mesolimbic system and differentially modulates subsequent recognition memory, (b) neural habituation to painful stimuli is modulated by dopamine, and (c) that alpha-beta oscillations in the substantia nigra signal the anticipation of both appetitive and aversive events. As such, our findings provide novel insights into the psychological and physiological mechanisms of aversive processing, and, from a more general perspective, they underline that the dopaminergic mesolimbic system plays a critical role in processing both appetitive and aversive events.