Waelti P, Dickinson A, Schultz W
Institute of Physiology and Programme in Neuroscience, University of Fribourg, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
Nature. 2001 Jul 5;412(6842):43-8. doi: 10.1038/35083500.
According to contemporary learning theories, the discrepancy, or error, between the actual and predicted reward determines whether learning occurs when a stimulus is paired with a reward. The role of prediction errors is directly demonstrated by the observation that learning is blocked when the stimulus is paired with a fully predicted reward. By using this blocking procedure, we show that the responses of dopamine neurons to conditioned stimuli was governed differentially by the occurrence of reward prediction errors rather than stimulus-reward associations alone, as was the learning of behavioural reactions. Both behavioural and neuronal learning occurred predominantly when dopamine neurons registered a reward prediction error at the time of the reward. Our data indicate that the use of analytical tests derived from formal behavioural learning theory provides a powerful approach for studying the role of single neurons in learning.
根据当代学习理论，实际奖励与预测奖励之间的差异或误差决定了在刺激与奖励配对时学习是否发生。当刺激与完全可预测的奖励配对时学习受到阻碍这一观察结果直接证明了预测误差的作用。通过使用这种阻碍程序，我们表明，多巴胺神经元对条件刺激的反应，与行为反应的学习一样，是由奖励预测误差的出现而非仅由刺激-奖励关联差异性地控制的。当多巴胺神经元在奖励出现时记录到奖励预测误差时，行为学习和神经元学习主要都会发生。我们的数据表明，使用源自正式行为学习理论的分析测试为研究单个神经元在学习中的作用提供了一种强有力的方法。
