Dopamine activity encodes the changing valence of the same stimulus in conditioned taste aversion paradigms.

ABSTRACT: Mesolimbic dopamine encoding of non-contingent rewards and reward-predictive cues has been well established. Considerable debate remains over how mesolimbic dopamine responds to aversion and in the context of aversive conditioning. Inconsistencies may arise from the use of aversive stimuli that are transduced along different neural paths relative to reward or the conflation of responses to avoidance and aversion. Here, we made intraoral infusions of sucrose and measured how dopamine and behavioral responses varied to the changing valence of sucrose. Pairing intraoral sucrose with malaise via injection of lithium chloride (LiCl) caused the development of a conditioned taste aversion (CTA), which rendered the typically rewarding taste of sucrose aversive upon subsequent re-exposure. Followin

SUBMITTER: Loh MK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11882140 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature