title: Serotonin differentially regulates short- and long-term prediction of rewards in the ventral and dorsal striatum.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The ability to select an action by considering both delays and amount of reward outcome is critical for maximizing long-term benefits. Although previous animal experiments on impulsivity have suggested a role of serotonin in behaviors requiring prediction of delayed rewards, the underlying neural mechanism is unclear.
  
  
  RESULTS
  To elucidate the role of serotonin in the evaluation of delayed rewards, we performed a functional brain imaging experiment in which subjects chose small-immediate or large-delayed liquid rewards under dietary regulation of tryptophan, a precursor of serotonin. A model-based analysis revealed that the activity of the ventral part of the striatum was correlated with reward prediction at shorter time scales, and this correlated activity was stronger at low serotonin levels. By contrast, the activity of the dorsal part of the striatum was correlated with reward prediction at longer time scales, and this correlated activity was stronger at high serotonin levels.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that serotonin controls the time scale of reward prediction by differentially regulating activities within the striatum.
authors: Department of Computational Neurobiology, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, Seika, Souraku, Kyoto, Japan. xsaori@atr.jp
authors: Saori C
authors: SC
authors: Tanaka
authors: Nicolas
authors: N
authors: Schweighofer
authors: Shuji
authors: S
authors: Asahi
authors: Kazuhiro
authors: K
authors: Shishida
authors: Yasumasa
authors: Y
authors: Okamoto
authors: Shigeto
authors: S
authors: Yamawaki
authors: Kenji
authors: K
authors: Doya
mesh_terms: D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000502:physiology*; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009042:Motivation; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012701:Serotonin / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D012701:Serotonin