Dynamic mesolimbic dopamine signaling during action sequence learning and expectation violation.

ABSTRACT: Prolonged mesolimbic dopamine concentration changes have been detected during spatial navigation, but little is known about the conditions that engender this signaling profile or how it develops with learning. To address this, we monitored dopamine concentration changes in the nucleus accumbens core of rats throughout acquisition and performance of an instrumental action sequence task. Prolonged dopamine concentration changes were detected that ramped up as rats executed each action sequence and declined after earned reward collection. With learning, dopamine concentration began to rise increasingly earlier in the execution of the sequence and ultimately backpropagated away from stereotyped sequence actions, becoming only transiently elevated by the most distal and unexpected reward predic

SUBMITTER: Collins AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4751524 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature