The role of nucleus accumbens dopamine in outcome encoding in instrumental and Pavlovian conditioning |
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| Authors: | Bjoern Lex Wolfgang Hauber |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles;2. Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles;3. Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles;4. Pitzer College and Claremont Colleges Neuroscience Program, Claremont, California;1. University of Würzburg, Germany;2. University of Freiburg i.Br., Germany;1. Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy;2. Laboratory of Computational Embodied Neuroscience, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy, Rome, Italy;3. Behavioural Neuroscience Laboratory, Brain & Mind Centre, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia;1. Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States;2. Movement Disorders Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States;3. Neuroscience Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States;4. Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States;1. Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Chile, Chile;2. Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, United States |
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| Abstract: | Considerable evidence suggests that dopamine in the core subregion of the nucleus accumbens is not only involved in Pavlovian conditioning but also supports instrumental performance. However, it is largely unknown whether NAc dopamine is required for outcome encoding which plays an important role both in Pavlovian stimulus-outcome learning and instrumental action-outcome learning. Therefore, we tested rats with 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) induced dopamine depletion of the NAc core for their sensitivity to outcome devaluation in a Pavlovian and an instrumental task. Results indicate that 6-OHDA-lesioned animals were sensitive to outcome devaluation in an instrumental task. This finding provides support to the notion that NAc core dopamine may not be crucial in encoding action-outcome associations. However, during instrumental conditioning lever pressing rates in 6-OHDA-lesioned animals were markedly lower which could reflect an impaired behavioral activation. By contrast, after outcome-specific devaluation in a Pavlovian task, performance in 6-OHDA-lesioned animals was impaired, i.e. their magazine-directed responding was non-selectively reduced. One possibility to explain non-selective responding is that NAc core DA depletion impaired the ability of conditioned stimuli to activate the memory of the current value of the reinforcer. |
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