ArticleScience advances2021
The neural basis of delayed gratification.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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.
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
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Musculoskeletal Disorders and Psychological and Environmental Factors Associated with Recreational and Sport Fishing: A Narrative Review.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2025Review
- Article
- Mesolimbic dopamine ramps reflect environmental timescales.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Enhancing striatal acetylcholine facilitates dopamine release and striatal output in parkinsonian mice.Cell & bioscience · 2024Article
- Itga5-PTEN signaling regulates striatal synaptic strength and motor coordination in Parkinson's disease.International journal of biological sciences · 2024Article
- The effect of reward value on the performance of long-tailed macaques (Primate biology · 2024Article
- Atypical antipsychotics antagonize GABAMolecular psychiatry · 2023Article
- Neural Correlates of Delay Discounting in the Light of Brain Imaging and Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation: What We Know and What Is Missed.Brain sciences · 2023Review
- Learned industriousness as a translational mechanism in anorexia nervosa.Nature reviews psychology · 2023Article
- Midbrain dopamine neurons signal phasic and ramping reward prediction error during goal-directed navigation.Cell reports · 2022Article
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
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Balancing instant gratification versus delayed but better gratification is important for optimizing survival and reproductive success. Although delayed gratification has been studied through human psychological and brain activity monitoring and animal research, little is known about its neural basis. We successfully trained mice to perform a waiting-for-water-reward delayed gratification task and used these animals in physiological recording and optical manipulation of neuronal activity during the task to explore its neural basis. Our results showed that the activity of dopaminergic (DAergic) neurons in the ventral tegmental area increases steadily during the waiting period. Optical activation or silencing of these neurons, respectively, extends or reduces the duration of waiting. To interpret these data, we developed a reinforcement learning model that reproduces our experimental observations. Steady increases in DAergic activity signal the value of waiting and support the hypothesis that delayed gratification involves real-time deliberation.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.