Optogenetic mimicry of the transient activation of dopamine neurons by natural reward is sufficient for operant reinforcement.

ABSTRACT: Activation of dopamine receptors in forebrain regions, for minutes or longer, is known to be sufficient for positive reinforcement of stimuli and actions. However, the firing rate of dopamine neurons is increased for only about 200 milliseconds following natural reward events that are better than expected, a response which has been described as a "reward prediction error" (RPE). Although RPE drives reinforcement learning (RL) in computational models, it has not been possible to directly test whether the transient dopamine signal actually drives RL. Here we have performed optical stimulation of genetically targeted ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine neurons expressing Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) in mice. We mimicked the transient activation of dopamine neurons that occurs in response to na

SUBMITTER: Kim KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3323614 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature