ArticleNature neuroscience2016
Mesolimbic dopamine signals the value of work.
Article in Nature neuroscience, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 456 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
456 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Differential Associations of Dopamine and Serotonin With Reward and Punishment Processes in Humans: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JAMA psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- "Wanting" versus "needing" related value: An fMRI meta-analysis.Brain and behavior · 2022Pooled it
- Dopamine D2-receptor blockade in humans disrupts the effect of effort on learning.PLoS biology · 2026Trial
- Sequence termination cues drive automated habit-like strategy via dopamine-mediated processes.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Effort, timing and choice: a refined rodent effort choice task with excellent sensitivity to dopamine modulators.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Region-specific weighting of sensory intensity and reward prediction error by dopamine signals.iScience · 2026Article
- Differential contributions of striatal dopaminergic pathways to visuomotor conditional learning.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Neuromodulatory Gating of Synaptic Plasticity: Mechanisms, Motivation, and Clinical Dysfunction Across Scales.Synapse (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Review
- Temporal Dynamics of Reward Dysfunction in Psychiatric Disorders: Memory-Derived Value, Incentive Salience, Hedonic Impact, and Value Updating.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Review
- Distributed cortical learning through LEC-mediated γ-synchrony.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Dopamine D2 receptors bypass canonical signaling to directly tune NMDA receptor function and aversive learning.Science advances · 2026Article
- The Tower Foraging Park: A paradigm for studying cognitive and motor processes underlying behavioral flexibility in freely moving mice.iScience · 2026Article
- A prolactin-receptive neural circuit drives maternal interactions with pups in mice.Science advances · 2026Article
- Striatal Dopamine at Learned Sequence Boundaries Sustains Birdsong.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Striatal dopamine signals internal states related to behavioral performance over prolonged timescales in monkeys.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Prediction error correlates in the striosome-dopamine circuit emerge from information gain.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Inherited input and local transformations shape the spatiotemporal organization of pathway specific striatal signals for motivated behavior.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Contributions of the basolateral amygdala and nucleus accumbens to sustaining not just initiating cognitive effort.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Dopamine in the ventral and tail of striatum supports global and local evaluation in reward-threat conflict.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
396 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Dopamine cell firing can encode errors in reward prediction, providing a learning signal to guide future behavior. Yet dopamine is also a key modulator of motivation, invigorating current behavior. Existing theories propose that fast (phasic) dopamine fluctuations support learning, whereas much slower (tonic) dopamine changes are involved in motivation. We examined dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens across multiple time scales, using complementary microdialysis and voltammetric methods during adaptive decision-making. We found that minute-by-minute dopamine levels covaried with reward rate and motivational vigor. Second-by-second dopamine release encoded an estimate of temporally discounted future reward (a value function). Changing dopamine immediately altered willingness to work and reinforced preceding action choices by encoding temporal-difference reward prediction errors. Our results indicate that dopamine conveys a single, rapidly evolving decision variable, the available reward for investment of effort, which is employed for both learning and motivational functions.
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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.