title: Dopamine transients are sufficient and necessary for acquisition of model-based associations.
abstract: Associative learning is driven by prediction errors. Dopamine transients correlate with these errors, which current interpretations limit to endowing cues with a scalar quantity reflecting the value of future rewards. We tested whether dopamine might act more broadly to support learning of an associative model of the environment. Using sensory preconditioning, we show that prediction errors underlying stimulus-stimulus learning can be blocked behaviorally and reinstated by optogenetically activating dopamine neurons. We further show that suppressing the firing of these neurons across the transition prevents normal stimulus-stimulus learning. These results establish that the acquisition of model-based information about transitions between nonrewarding events is also driven by prediction errors and that, contrary to existing canon, dopamine transients are both sufficient and necessary to support this type of learning. Our findings open new possibilities for how these biological signals might support associative learning in the mammalian brain in these and other contexts.
authors.affiliation: NIDA Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.|Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
authors.forename: Melissa J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Sharpe
authors.affiliation: NIDA Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Chun Yun
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: NIDA Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Melissa A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: NIDA Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Hannah M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Batchelor
authors.affiliation: NIDA Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Lauren E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Mueller
authors.affiliation: NIDA Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Joshua L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
authors.forename: Yael
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0259-8371
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Niv
authors.affiliation: NIDA Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.|Departments of Anatomy and of Neurobiology and Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.|Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Geoffrey
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8180-0701
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schoenbaum
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D003463:Cues; D059290:Dopaminergic Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D012201:Reward; D017557:Ventral Tegmental Area / Q000502:physiology*