ArticleNature communications2025
Dopamine dynamics during stimulus-reward learning in mice can be explained by performance rather than learning.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dynamic salience as a basis for behavioural meta-malleability.Royal Society open science · 2026Review
- Mechanistic corticostriatal circuit model predicts learning-dependent fMRI dynamics and individual reward bias in humans.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Complementary influences of noradrenaline and dopamine in orchestrating a motivated social behavior.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2026Review
- Article
- Functional bipartition of medial prefrontal cortex into salience detection and movement gain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- A dual-color miniature endoscope for calcium imaging in behaving mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Functional imaging of time on task and the involvement of dopaminergic and cholinergic substrates in cognitive effort and reward.Scientific reports · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The reward prediction error (RPE) hypothesis posits that phasic dopamine (DA) activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) encodes the difference between expected and actual rewards to drive reinforcement learning. However, emerging evidence suggests DA may instead regulate behavioral performance. Here, we used force sensors to measure subtle movements in head-fixed mice during a Pavlovian stimulus-reward task, while recording and manipulating VTA DA activity. We identified distinct DA neuron populations tuned to forward and backward force exertion. They are active during both spontaneous and conditioned behaviors, independent of learning or reward predictability. Variations in force and licking fully account for DA dynamics traditionally attributed to RPE, including variations in firing rates related to reward magnitude, probability, and omission. Optogenetic manipulations further confirmed that DA modulates force exertion and behavioral transitions in real time, without affecting learning. Our findings challenge the RPE hypothesis and instead suggest that VTA DA neurons dynamically adjust the gain of motivated behaviors, controlling their latency, direction, and intensity during performance.
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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.