title: Ventral Pallidum Neurons Encode Incentive Value and Promote Cue-Elicited Instrumental Actions.
abstract: The ventral pallidum (VP) is posited to contribute to reward seeking by conveying upstream signals from the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Yet, very little is known about how VP neuron responses contribute to behavioral responses to incentive cues. Here, we recorded activity of VP neurons in a cue-driven reward-seeking task previously shown to require neural activity in the NAc. We find that VP neurons encode both learned cue value and subsequent reward seeking and that activity in VP neurons is required for robust cue-elicited reward seeking. Surprisingly, the onset of VP neuron responses occurs at a shorter latency than cue-elicited responses in NAc neurons. This suggests that this VP encoding is not a passive response to signals generated in the NAc and that VP neurons integrate sensory and motivation-related information received directly from other mesocorticolimbic inputs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, The Wheeler Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. Electronic address: jocelyn.richard@jhu.edu.
authors.forename: Jocelyn M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Richard
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, The Wheeler Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA; Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, LNC UMR 7291, 13331 Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Frederic
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ambroggi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA; The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
authors.forename: Patricia H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Janak
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, The Wheeler Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA. Electronic address: howard.fields@ucsf.edu.
authors.forename: Howard L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Fields
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D066187:Basal Forebrain / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D009714:Nucleus Accumbens / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D012201:Reward