Dopamine builds and reveals reward-associated latent behavioral attractors.

ABSTRACT: Phasic variations in dopamine levels are interpreted as a teaching signal reinforcing rewarded behaviors. However, behavior also depends on the motivational, neuromodulatory effect of phasic dopamine. In this study, we reveal a neurodynamical principle that unifies these roles in a recurrent network-based decision architecture embodied through an action-perception loop with the task space, the MAGNet model. Dopamine optogenetic conditioning in mice was accounted for by an embodied network model in which attractors encode internal goals. Dopamine-dependent synaptic plasticity created "latent" attractors, to which dynamics converged, but only locally. Attractor basins were widened by dopamine-modulated synaptic excitability, rendering goals accessible globally, i.e. from distal positions. We

SUBMITTER: Naude J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11561151 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature