ArticleNature neuroscience2025
Prospective contingency explains behavior and dopamine signals during associative learning.
Article in Nature neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Prediction error correlates in the striosome-dopamine circuit emerge from information gain.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Neuromodulator Dynamics Underlying Associative Learning in the Ventral Striatum's Olfactory Tubercle.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Dopamine in the ventral and tail of striatum supports global and local evaluation in reward-threat conflict.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Mesocorticostriatal Reinforcement Learning of State Representation and Value with Implications for the Mechanisms of Schizophrenia.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Phasic dopamine drives conditioned responding beyond its role in learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Memory erasure by dopamine-gated retrospective learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Dopamine signatures of excessive and compulsive cocaine and fentanyl use.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Estrogen modulates reward prediction errors and reinforcement learning.Nature neuroscience · 2025Article
- Reconciling time and prediction error theories of associative learning.Nature communications · 2025Article
- A hardwired neural circuit for temporal difference learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Article
- Striatal Gradient in Value-Decay Explains Regional Differences in Dopamine Patterns and Reinforcement Learning Computations.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- The devilish details affecting TDRL models in dopamine research.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2025Review
- Learning depends on the information conveyed by temporal relationships between events and is reflected in the dopamine response to cues.Science advances · 2024Article
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7 authors.
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Abstract
Associative learning depends on contingency, the degree to which a stimulus predicts an outcome. Despite its importance, the neural mechanisms linking contingency to behavior remain elusive. In the present study, we examined the dopamine activity in the ventral striatum-a signal implicated in associative learning-in a Pavlovian contingency degradation task in mice. We show that both anticipatory licking and dopamine responses to a conditioned stimulus decreased when additional rewards were delivered uncued, but remained unchanged if additional rewards were cued. These results conflict with contingency-based accounts using a traditional definition of contingency or a new causal learning model (ANCCR), but can be explained by temporal difference (TD) learning models equipped with an appropriate intertrial interval state representation. Recurrent neural networks trained within a TD framework develop state representations akin to our best 'handcrafted' model. Our findings suggest that the TD error can be a measure that describes both contingency and dopaminergic activity.
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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.