Ventral striatum's role in learning from gains and losses.

ABSTRACT: Adaptive behavior requires animals to learn from experience. Ideally, learning should both promote choices that lead to rewards and reduce choices that lead to losses. Because the ventral striatum (VS) contains neurons that respond to aversive stimuli and aversive stimuli can drive dopamine release in the VS, it is possible that the VS contributes to learning about aversive outcomes, including losses. However, other work suggests that the VS may play a specific role in learning to choose among rewards, with other systems mediating learning from aversive outcomes. To examine the role of the VS in learning from gains and losses, we compared the performance of macaque monkeys with VS lesions and unoperated controls on a reinforcement learning task. In the task, the monkeys gained or lost toke

SUBMITTER: Taswell CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6310791 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature