ArticleeLife2023
On the normative advantages of dopamine and striatal opponency for learning and choice.
Article in eLife, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dopamine dynamics in human anterior cingulate cortex during Pavlovian-instrumental conflict.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Activity in human dorsal raphe nucleus signals changes in behavioural policy.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Timescales of dopamine release in the striatum as a window into hierarchical control.Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2025Article
- Tonic dopamine and biases in value learning linked through a biologically inspired reinforcement learning model.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Experience-based risk taking is primarily shaped by prior learning rather than by decision-making.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Developing algorithmic psychiatry via multi-level spanning computational models.Cell reports. Medicine · 2025Review
- Article
- Many roads to minimizing regret: A comparison of Wang et al (2024) and OpAL* models of adaptive striatal dopamine.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Humans learn generalizable representations through efficient coding.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Reward expectation and receipt differentially modulate the spiking of accumbens D1+ and D2+ neurons.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Article
- Understanding learning through uncertainty and bias.Communications psychology · 2025Review
- Adaptive chunking improves effective working memory capacity in a prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia circuit.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Subthalamic control of impulsive actions: insights from deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2024Review
- Wideband ratiometric measurement of tonic and phasic dopamine release in the striatum.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- A dopaminergic basis of behavioral control.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Surprising sounds influence risky decision making.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Explaining dopamine through prediction errors and beyond.Nature neuroscience · 2024Review
- Ethological computational psychiatry: Challenges and opportunities.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2024Review
- Dopamine encoding of novelty facilitates efficient uncertainty-driven exploration.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The basal ganglia (BG) contribute to reinforcement learning (RL) and decision-making, but unlike artificial RL agents, it relies on complex circuitry and dynamic dopamine modulation of opponent striatal pathways to do so. We develop the OpAL* model to assess the normative advantages of this circuitry. In OpAL*, learning induces opponent pathways to differentially emphasize the history of positive or negative outcomes for each action. Dynamic DA modulation then amplifies the pathway most tuned for the task environment. This efficient coding mechanism avoids a vexing explore-exploit tradeoff that plagues traditional RL models in sparse reward environments. OpAL* exhibits robust advantages over alternative models, particularly in environments with sparse reward and large action spaces. These advantages depend on opponent and nonlinear Hebbian plasticity mechanisms previously thought to be pathological. Finally, OpAL* captures risky choice patterns arising from DA and environmental manipulations across species, suggesting that they result from a normative biological mechanism.
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