A transient dopamine signal encodes subjective value and causally influences demand in an economic context.

ABSTRACT: The mesolimbic dopamine system is strongly implicated in motivational processes. Currently accepted theories suggest that transient mesolimbic dopamine release events energize reward seeking and encode reward value. During the pursuit of reward, critical associations are formed between the reward and cues that predict its availability. Conditioned by these experiences, dopamine neurons begin to fire upon the earliest presentation of a cue, and again at the receipt of reward. The resulting dopamine concentration scales proportionally to the value of the reward. In this study, we used a behavioral economics approach to quantify how transient dopamine release events scale with price and causally alter price sensitivity. We presented sucrose to rats across a range of prices and modeled the res

SUBMITTER: Schelp SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5748169 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature