TY - JOUR
T1 - Temporal Specificity of Reward Prediction Errors Signaled by Putative Dopamine Neurons in Rat VTA Depends on Ventral Striatum
AU - Takahashi, Yuji K.
AU - Langdon, Angela J.
AU - Niv, Yael
AU - Schoenbaum, Geoffrey
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by funding from NIDA (to Y.K.T. and G.S.), the Human Frontier Science Program Organization (to A.J.L.), and NIMH grant R01MH098861 (to Y.N.). The opinions expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not reflect the view of the NIH, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. The authors would like to acknowledge Nathaniel Daw for helpful suggestions regarding the semi-Markov model of the task.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016
PY - 2016/7/6
Y1 - 2016/7/6
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuron.2016.05.015
DO - 10.1016/j.neuron.2016.05.015
M3 - Article
C2 - 27292535
AN - SCOPUS:84991262300
SN - 0896-6273
VL - 91
SP - 182
EP - 193
JO - Neuron
JF - Neuron
IS - 1
ER -