ArticleNature neuroscience2016
Nicotinic receptors in the ventral tegmental area promote uncertainty-seeking.
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 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 60 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Nicotine and neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors: unraveling the mechanisms of nicotine addiction.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Review
- Dopamine builds and reveals reward-associated latent behavioral attractors.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Vagus nerve stimulation during training fails to improve learning in healthy rats.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Aging, uncertainty, and decision making-A review.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2023Review
- β2 nAChR Activation on VTA DA Neurons Is Sufficient for Nicotine Reinforcement in Rats.eNeuro · 2023Article
- Enhanced perceptual task performance without deprivation in mice using medial forebrain bundle stimulation.Cell reports methods · 2022Article
- Rational arbitration between statistics and rules in human sequence processing.Nature human behaviour · 2022Article
- Seeking motivation and reward: Roles of dopamine, hippocampus, and supramammillo-septal pathway.Progress in neurobiology · 2022Article
- Social Determinants of Inter-Individual Variability and Vulnerability: The Role of Dopamine.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Review
- Design Principles for Neurorobotics.Frontiers in neurorobotics · 2022Article
- Neurobiological Mechanisms of Nicotine Reward and Aversion.Pharmacological reviews · 2022Review
- Chronic nicotine increases midbrain dopamine neuron activity and biases individual strategies towards reduced exploration in mice.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Noradrenergic But Not Dopaminergic Neurons Signal Task State Changes and Predict Reengagement After a Failure.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2020Article
- Mice adaptively generate choice variability in a deterministic task.Communications biology · 2020Article
- Nicotine and alcohol: the role of midbrain dopaminergic neurons in drug reinforcement.The European journal of neuroscience · 2019Review
- Dopamine blockade impairs the exploration-exploitation trade-off in rats.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Article
- Social interactions impact on the dopaminergic system and drive individuality.Nature communications · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cholinergic neurotransmission affects decision-making, notably through the modulation of perceptual processing in the cortex. In addition, acetylcholine acts on value-based decisions through as yet unknown mechanisms. We found that nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) expressed in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are involved in the translation of expected uncertainty into motivational value. We developed a multi-armed bandit task for mice with three locations, each associated with a different reward probability. We found that mice lacking the nAChR β2 subunit showed less uncertainty-seeking than their wild-type counterparts. Using model-based analysis, we found that reward uncertainty motivated wild-type mice, but not mice lacking the nAChR β2 subunit. Selective re-expression of the β2 subunit in the VTA was sufficient to restore spontaneous bursting activity in dopamine neurons and uncertainty-seeking. Our results reveal an unanticipated role for subcortical nAChRs in motivation induced by expected uncertainty and provide a parsimonious account for a wealth of behaviors related to nAChRs in the VTA expressing the β2 subunit.
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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.