Temporal Specificity of Reward Prediction Errors Signaled by Putative Dopamine Neurons in Rat VTA Depends on Ventral Striatum.
Dopamine neurons signal reward prediction errors. This requires accurate reward predictions. It has been suggested that the ventral striatum provides these predictions. Here we tested this hypothesis by recording from putative dopamine neurons in the VTA of rats performing a task in which prediction errors were induced by shifting reward timing or number. In controls, the neurons exhibited error signals in response to both manipulations. However, dopamine neurons in rats with ipsilateral ventral striatal lesions exhibited errors only to changes in number and failed to respond to changes in timing of reward. These results, supported by computational modeling, indicate that predictions about the temporal specificity and the number of expected reward are dissociable and that dopaminergic prediction-error signals rely on the ventral striatum for the former but not the latter.
NIDA Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA. Electronic address: yuji.takahashi@nih.gov.
Yuji K
YK
Takahashi
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Angela J
AJ
Langdon
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Yael
Y
Niv
NIDA Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA; Departments of Anatomy & Neurobiology and Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA; Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA. Electronic address: geoffrey.schoenbaum@nih.gov.
Geoffrey
G
Schoenbaum
D000818:Animals; D001479:Basal Ganglia / Q000502:physiology*; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism*; D059290:Dopaminergic Neurons / Q000378:metabolism*; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D012201:Reward; D066328:Ventral Striatum / Q000502:physiology*; D017557:Ventral Tegmental Area / Q000502:physiology*
D004298:Dopamine