The Arousal-motor Hypothesis of Dopamine Function: Evidence that Dopamine Facilitates Reward Seeking in Part by Maintaining Arousal.

ABSTRACT: Dopamine facilitates approach to reward via its actions on dopamine receptors in the nucleus accumbens. For example, blocking either D1 or D2 dopamine receptors in the accumbens reduces the proportion of reward-predictive cues to which rats respond with cued approach. Recent evidence indicates that accumbens dopamine also promotes wakefulness and arousal, but the relationship between dopamine's roles in arousal and reward seeking remains unexplored. Here, we show that the ability of systemic or intra-accumbens injections of the D1 antagonist SCH23390 to reduce cued approach to reward depends on the animal's state of arousal. Handling the animal, a manipulation known to increase arousal, was sufficient to reverse the behavioral effects of the antagonist. In addition, SCH23390 reduced sponta

SUBMITTER: Kazmierczak M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9479757 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature