ArticleNature neuroscience2020
Causal evidence supporting the proposal that dopamine transients function as temporal difference prediction errors.
Article in Nature neuroscience, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers.
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Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed, 100 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Prediction error correlates in the striosome-dopamine circuit emerge from information gain.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Dopamine projections to the basolateral amygdala enable reward prediction.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Methamphetamine potentiates the use of outcome-specific associations via a hypothalamic-dopamine circuit.Neuron · 2026Article
- Second-order conditioning of safety in male and female rats.Behavioural brain research · 2026Article
- Altered amygdala and striatal responsivity and prediction error encoding of temporal reward dynamics in post-trauma psychopathology.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Predictive coding of reward in the hippocampus.Nature · 2026Article
- Rapid dopaminergic signatures in movement: Reach vigor reflects reward prediction error and learned expectation.Science advances · 2026Article
- Dopamine Supports Reward Prediction to Shape Reward-Pursuit Strategy.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Dopamine Responses in Medial Frontal Cortex Are More Consistent with a Generalized Arousal Signal Than Signed Reward Prediction Errors.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Dynamic changes in chloride homeostasis coordinate midbrain inhibitory network activity during reward learning.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Trial-by-trial learning of successor representations in human behavior.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Trial-by-trial learning of successor representations in human behavior.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Dopamine dynamics during stimulus-reward learning in mice can be explained by performance rather than learning.Nature communications · 2025Article
- A hardwired neural circuit for temporal difference learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Individual differences in decision-making shape how mesolimbic dopamine regulates choice confidence and change-of-mind.Nature neuroscience · 2025Article
- The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2025Review
- Article
- Rapid Dopaminergic Signatures in Movement: Reach Vigor Reflects Reward Prediction Error and Learned Expectation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Mesolimbic dopamine ramps reflect environmental timescales.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Reward-evoked dopamine transients are well established as prediction errors. However, the central tenet of temporal difference accounts-that similar transients evoked by reward-predictive cues also function as errors-remains untested. In the present communication we addressed this by showing that optogenetically shunting dopamine activity at the start of a reward-predicting cue prevents second-order conditioning without affecting blocking. These results indicate that cue-evoked transients function as temporal-difference prediction errors rather than reward predictions.
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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.