title: Dopamine invigorates reward seeking by promoting cue-evoked excitation in the nucleus accumbens.
abstract: Approach to reward is a fundamental adaptive behavior, disruption of which is a core symptom of addiction and depression. Nucleus accumbens (NAc) dopamine is required for reward-predictive cues to activate vigorous reward seeking, but the underlying neural mechanism is unknown. Reward-predictive cues elicit both dopamine release in the NAc and excitations and inhibitions in NAc neurons. However, a direct link has not been established between dopamine receptor activation, NAc cue-evoked neuronal activity, and reward-seeking behavior. Here, we use a novel microelectrode array that enables simultaneous recording of neuronal firing and local dopamine receptor antagonist injection. We demonstrate that, in the NAc of rats performing a discriminative stimulus task for sucrose reward, blockade of either D1 or D2 receptors selectively attenuates excitation, but not inhibition, evoked by reward-predictive cues. Furthermore, we establish that this dopamine-dependent signal is necessary for reward-seeking behavior. These results demonstrate a neural mechanism by which NAc dopamine invigorates environmentally cued reward-seeking behavior.
authors.affiliation: Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience and.
authors.forename: Johann
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: du Hoffmann
authors.affiliation: Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, New York 10461 saleem.nicola@einstein.yu.edu.
authors.forename: Saleem M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Nicola
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003463:Cues; D004298:Dopamine / Q000502:physiology*; D018492:Dopamine Antagonists / Q000008:administration & dosage; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008845:Microinjections; D009714:Nucleus Accumbens / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward
chemical_list: D018492:Dopamine Antagonists; D004298:Dopamine
keywords: cue-excited neurons; discriminative stimulus; dopamine; nucleus accumbens; reward seeking