Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Nat Neurosci. 2024 Apr;27(4):728-736. doi: 10.1038/s41593-024-01586-7. Epub 2024 Feb 23.
To make adaptive decisions, we build an internal model of the associative relationships in an environment and use it to make predictions and inferences about specific available outcomes. Detailed, identity-specific cue-reward memories are a core feature of such cognitive maps. Here we used fiber photometry, cell-type and pathway-specific optogenetic manipulation, Pavlovian cue-reward conditioning and decision-making tests in male and female rats, to reveal that ventral tegmental area dopamine (VTA) projections to the basolateral amygdala (BLA) drive the encoding of identity-specific cue-reward memories. Dopamine is released in the BLA during cue-reward pairing; VTA→BLA activity is necessary and sufficient to link the identifying features of a reward to a predictive cue but does not assign general incentive properties to the cue or mediate reinforcement. These data reveal a dopaminergic pathway for the learning that supports adaptive decision-making and help explain how VTA neurons achieve their emerging multifaceted role in learning.
为了做出适应性决策，我们构建了环境中联想关系的内部模型，并利用它对特定可用结果做出预测和推断。详细的、特定于身份的线索-奖励记忆是这种认知地图的核心特征。在这里，我们使用光纤光度法、细胞类型和途径特异性光遗传学操作、条件反射线索-奖励训练和雄性和雌性大鼠的决策测试，揭示了腹侧被盖区多巴胺（VTA）投射到基底外侧杏仁核（BLA）驱动身份特异性线索-奖励记忆的编码。在线索-奖励配对过程中，BLA 中释放多巴胺；VTA→BLA 的活动是将奖励的识别特征与预测线索联系起来所必需和充分的，但不会赋予线索一般的激励属性，也不会介导强化。这些数据揭示了支持适应性决策的学习的多巴胺能途径，并有助于解释 VTA 神经元如何在学习中发挥其新兴的多方面作用。
