Stress, associative learning, and decision-making

Giovanniello, Jacqueline; Bravo-Rivera, Christian; Rosenkranz, Amiel; Matthew Lattal, K.

doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2023.107812

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 191 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Protracted disturbances in the balance of reward seeking vs. avoidance is a hallmark of numerous psychiatric disorders 3,55,56 . Environmental factors (e.g., stress or trauma) can promote maladaptive learning that precipitates pathological avoidance [57][58][59][60] . Primary treatments include cognitive behavioral therapy and drugs whose targets cluster in neuromodulatory systems, including in the dopamine system.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prefrontal dopamine circuits are required for active avoidance learning but not for fear learning

Zeidler,

Gómez,

Gupta

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) resolves approach-avoidance conflicts and mediates associative processes required for learning to avoid threats. Dopamine (DA) projections from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the mPFC carry information about aversive outcomes that may inform prefrontal computations. However, the role of prefrontal DA in learning based on aversive outcomes remains poorly understood. Here, we used platform mediated avoidance (PMA) to study the role of mPFC DA in threat avoidance learning in mice. We show that activity within dopaminergic VTA terminals in the mPFC is required for signaled avoidance learning, but not for escape, conditioned fear, or to recall a previously learned avoidance strategy. Using a Rescorla-Wagner model fit to the behavior of individual mice, we discovered that VTA-mPFC activity drives experience-dependent transitions in the mode of learning. As mice learn PMA, changes in avoidance behavior were initially driven by experiences of shock and later by successful shock avoidance. Inhibition of VTA-mPFC terminals prevented this transition. Taken together, these data indicate that mPFC DA is necessary to rapidly form associations between predictive cues and actions that preempt aversive outcomes.

show abstract