Faculty Opinions recommendation of Dopamine neurons create Pavlovian conditioned stimuli with circuit-defined motivational properties.

Environmental cues, through Pavlovian learning, become conditioned stimuli that guide animals toward the acquisition of rewards (for example, food) that are necessary for survival. We tested the fundamental role of midbrain dopamine neurons in conferring predictive and motivational properties to cues, independent of external rewards. We found that brief phasic optogenetic excitation of dopamine neurons, when presented in temporal association with discrete sensory cues, was sufficient to instantiate those cues as conditioned stimuli that subsequently both evoked dopamine neuron activity on their own and elicited cue-locked conditioned behavior. Notably, we identified highly parcellated functions for dopamine neuron subpopulations projecting to different regions of striatum, revealing dissociable dopamine systems for the generation of incentive value and conditioned movement invigoration. Our results indicate that dopamine neurons orchestrate Pavlovian conditioning via functionally heterogeneous, circuit-specific motivational signals to create, gate, and shape cue-controlled behaviors. PMID: 30038277 Funding information This work was supported by: NIAAA NIH HHS, United States Grant ID: R00 AA025384 NIAAA NIH HHS, United States Grant ID: P50 AA017072 NIDA NIH HHS, United States Grant ID: F32 DA036996 NIDA NIH HHS, United States Grant ID: K99 DA042895 NIDA NIH HHS, United States Grant ID: R01 DA030529 NIDA NIH HHS, United States Grant ID: R00 DA042895 NIAAA NIH HHS, United States Grant ID: F32 AA022290 NIDA NIH HHS, United States Grant ID: R01 DA035943 NIAAA NIH HHS, United States Grant ID: K99 AA025384 More Less keyboard_arrow_down