Sequence termination cues drive habits via dopamine-mediated credit assignment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Mesolimbic dopamine (DA) neurons are central to cue guided reward seeking and action sequence learning. Yet, the mechanisms by which cue-induced DA neural activity drives goal-directed or habitual sequence execution remain unknown.

Methods

We designed two novel tasks to isolate the effect of sequence-delineating cues on DA-driven behavioral strategies and learning. In the lever insertion fixed-ratio 5 task (LI5), the lever insertion marked sequence initiation. In the lever retraction fixed-ratio 5 task (LR5), the lever retraction served as both sequence termination and reward-predictive cue.

Results

We found that sequence initiation and termination cues differentially affect reward expectation during action sequences, with only the termination cue contribut

SUBMITTER: Magnard R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11507917 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature