ArticleiScience2026
Sustained activity of human substantia nigra neurons reflect prior rewards.
Article in iScience, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neurometabolic Signatures of Alexithymia and Visuospatial Abilities in Parkinson's Disease: An ExploratoryJournal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Microstimulation of the human dopaminergic midbrain enhances outcome-related happiness and reduces loss seeking.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
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Abstract
Dopamine (DA) signals from substantia nigra (SN) neurons encode reward prediction errors (RPEs) and have been implicated in motor control, reward processing, and motivational vigor. However, how recent reward history, related to reward expectations, is represented within the dopaminergic system remains poorly understood, particularly in humans, due to the difficulty of recording DA neuron activity directly. To address this, we performed single-unit recordings from the SN of patients with Parkinson's disease undergoing neurosurgery while they played a two-armed bandit decision-making task. We found that the firing rates (FRs) of putative DA neurons during reward expectation were modulated by previous trial outcomes, with higher FRs following positive outcomes. This increase in FRs was associated with faster subsequent reaction times (RTs), suggesting a link between neural signals reflecting prior reward and behavioral response vigor. These results provide a potential physiological substrate for how reward history influences behavior through the modulation of human 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.