title: Opponent interactions between serotonin and dopamine.
abstract: Anatomical and pharmacological evidence suggests that the dorsal raphe serotonin system and the ventral tegmental and substantia nigra dopamine system may act as mutual opponents. In the light of the temporal difference model of the involvement of the dopamine system in reward learning, we consider three aspects of motivational opponency involving dopamine and serotonin. We suggest that a tonic serotonergic signal reports the long-run average reward rate as part of an average-case reinforcement learning model; that a tonic dopaminergic signal reports the long-run average punishment rate in a similar context; and finally speculate that a phasic serotonin signal might report an ongoing prediction error for future punishment.
authors.affiliation: Computer Science Department and Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213-3891, USA. daw@cs.cmu.edu
authors.forename: Nathaniel D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Daw
authors.forename: Sham
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kakade
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dayan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004298:Dopamine / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward; D012701:Serotonin / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D012701:Serotonin; D004298:Dopamine