Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30323275›Full record

ArticleNature neuroscience2018

The timing of action determines reward prediction signals in identified midbrain dopamine neurons.

Luke T Coddington, Joshua T Dudman

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 120 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
120citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

120 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Distinct forms of dopamine transmission control locomotion and learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Striatal Dopamine at Learned Sequence Boundaries Sustains Birdsong.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026
    Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Spatiotemporally Distinct Dopamine Domains in the Hippocampus.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. A hardwired neural circuit for temporal difference learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025
    Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article

60 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Luke T CoddingtonHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, VA, USA. luketc82@gmail.com.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0785-4231
Joshua T DudmanHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, VA, USA. dudmanj@janelia.hhmi.org.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4436-1057

Funding

Howard Hughes Medical Institute
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Animals adapt their behavior in response to informative sensory cues using multiple brain circuits. The activity of midbrain dopaminergic neurons is thought to convey a critical teaching signal: reward-prediction error. Although reward-prediction error signals are thought to be essential to learning, little is known about the dynamic changes in the activity of midbrain dopaminergic neurons as animals learn about novel sensory cues and appetitive rewards. Here we describe a large dataset of cell-attached recordings of identified dopaminergic neurons as naive mice learned a novel cue-reward association. During learning midbrain dopaminergic neuron activity results from the summation of sensory cue-related and movement initiation-related response components. These components are both a function of reward expectation yet they are dissociable. Learning produces an increasingly precise coordination of action initiation following sensory cues that results in apparent reward-prediction error correlates. Our data thus provide new insights into the circuit mechanisms that underlie a critical computation in a highly conserved learning circuit.

Indexed as

RewardAnimalsCuesDopaminergic NeuronsLearningMesencephalonMice

Identifiers

PMID30323275
PMCPMC6226028

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

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.