Striatal Activity and Reward Relativity: Neural Signals Encoding Dynamic Outcome Valuation.

ABSTRACT: The striatum is a key brain region involved in reward processing. Striatal activity has been linked to encoding reward magnitude and integrating diverse reward outcome information. Recent work has supported the involvement of striatum in the valuation of outcomes. The present work extends this idea by examining striatal activity during dynamic shifts in value that include different levels and directions of magnitude disparity. A novel task was used to produce diverse relative reward effects on a chain of instrumental action. Rats (Rattus norvegicus) were trained to respond to cues associated with specific outcomes varying by food pellet magnitude. Animals were exposed to single-outcome sessions followed by mixed-outcome sessions, and neural activity was compared among identical outcome tri

SUBMITTER: Webber ES 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5089537 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep-Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature