ArticleFrontiers in computational neuroscience2015
Dopamine, reward learning, and active inference.
Article in Frontiers in computational neuroscience, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 53 papers.
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Who cites it
53 citing papers in PubMed.
- Prediction error correlates in the striosome-dopamine circuit emerge from information gain.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Active inference and speech motor control.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- A ventral tegmental area GABAergic projection to the ventral pallidum regulates value-based decision making in mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- From intention-behavior gap to dietary affordances: an active inference account of sustainable eating.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- 20 Years of Aberrant Salience in Psychosis: What Have We Learned?The American journal of psychiatry · 2025Review
- Policy Complexity Suppresses Dopamine Responses.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Generalized cue reactivity in rat dopamine neurons after opioids.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Resilience phenotypes derived from an active inference account of allostasis.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- An Active-Inference Approach to Second-Person Neuroscience.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2024Review
- Dopamine-mediated formation of a memory module in the nucleus accumbens for goal-directed navigation.Nature neuroscience · 2024Article
- Policy complexity suppresses dopamine responses.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- An Integrated theory of false insights and beliefs under psychedelics.Communications psychology · 2024Review
- Sex-Specific Mechanisms Underlie Long-Term Potentiation at Hippocampus→Medium Spiny Neuron Synapses in the Medial Shell of the Nucleus Accumbens.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Article
- Generalized cue reactivity in dopamine neurons after opioids.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Dopamine regulates decision thresholds in human reinforcement learning in males.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Longing to act: Bayesian inference as a framework for craving in behavioral addiction.Addictive behaviors · 2023Review
- Cognitive effort and active inference.Neuropsychologia · 2023Article
- Mental control of uncertainty.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Article
- Differentiating between Bayesian parameter learning and structure learning based on behavioural and pupil measures.PloS one · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Temporal difference learning models propose phasic dopamine signaling encodes reward prediction errors that drive learning. This is supported by studies where optogenetic stimulation of dopamine neurons can stand in lieu of actual reward. Nevertheless, a large body of data also shows that dopamine is not necessary for learning, and that dopamine depletion primarily affects task performance. We offer a resolution to this paradox based on an hypothesis that dopamine encodes the precision of beliefs about alternative actions, and thus controls the outcome-sensitivity of behavior. We extend an active inference scheme for solving Markov decision processes to include learning, and show that simulated dopamine dynamics strongly resemble those actually observed during instrumental conditioning. Furthermore, simulated dopamine depletion impairs performance but spares learning, while simulated excitation of dopamine neurons drives reward learning, through aberrant inference about outcome states. Our formal approach provides a novel and parsimonious reconciliation of apparently divergent experimental findings.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.