VTA Dopamine Neurons Multiplex External with Internal Representations of Goal-Directed Action

Kremer, Yves; Flakowski, Jérôme; Rohner, Clément; Lüscher, Christian

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3249465

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 66 publications

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“…Together with other evidence Parker et al, 2016;Howe and Dombeck, 2016;Menegas et al, 2017Menegas et al, , 2018Wenzel et al, 2015; but see Yang et al, 2018), the present results reinforce the idea that dopamine signals in the ventral striatum resemble TD RPEs. Although dopamine neurons in this population exhibit some diversity (Engelhard et al, 2019;Yves et al, 2018), at least some of the observed variability can be understood within the framework of RPEs. In contrast, more globally, a much larger level of diversity exists across different regions of the striatum: ventral, dorsomedial, dorsolateral, and the tail of striatum (Cox and Witten, 2019;Watabe-Uchida and Uchida, 2019).…”

Section: Hierarchy In the Diversity Of Dopamine Signalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A unified framework for dopamine signals across timescales

Kim

Malik

Mikhael

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Rapid phasic activity of midbrain dopamine neurons are thought to signal reward prediction errors (RPEs), resembling temporal difference errors used in machine learning. Recent studies describing slowly increasing dopamine signals have instead proposed that they represent state values and arise independently from somatic spiking activity. Here, we developed novel experimental paradigms using virtual reality that disambiguate RPEs from values. We examined the dopamine circuit activity at various stages including somatic spiking, axonal calcium signals, and striatal dopamine concentrations. Our results demonstrate that ramping dopamine signals are consistent with RPEs rather than value, and this ramping is observed at all the stages examined. We further show that ramping dopamine signals can be driven by a dynamic stimulus that indicates a gradual approach to a reward. We provide a unified computational understanding of rapid phasic and slowly ramping dopamine signals: dopamine neurons perform a derivative-like computation over values on a moment-by-moment basis.

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Section: Hierarchy In the Diversity Of Dopamine Signalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A unified framework for dopamine signals across timescales

Kim

Malik

Mikhael

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Ventral tegmental dopamine neurons control the impulse vector during motivated behavior

Hughes

Bakhurin

Petter

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) is a major source of dopamine, especially to the limbic brain regions. Despite decades of research, the function of VTA dopamine neurons remains controversial. Here, using a novel head-fixed behavioral system with five orthogonal force sensors, we show for the first time that distinct populations of VTA dopamine activity 5 precisely represent the impulse vector (force exerted over time) generated by the animal.Optogenetic excitation of VTA dopamine neurons quantitatively determines impulse in the forward direction, and optogenetic inhibition produces impulse in the backward direction. At the same time, these neurons also regulate the initiation and execution of anticipatory licking. Our results indicate that VTA controls the magnitude, direction, and duration of force used to move 10 towards or away from any motivationally relevant stimuli.One Sentence Summary: VTA dopamine bidirectionally controls impulse vector and anticipatory behavior 15

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VTA Dopamine Neurons Multiplex External with Internal Representations of Goal-Directed Action

Cited by 2 publications

References 66 publications

A unified framework for dopamine signals across timescales

A unified framework for dopamine signals across timescales

Ventral tegmental dopamine neurons control the impulse vector during motivated behavior

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