Almeida Rojo Ana L, Cai Li, Barnhardt Tyler R, Huang Yanhua H
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15219, USA.
Transl Psychiatry. 2025 Jul 1;15(1):219. doi: 10.1038/s41398-025-03442-z.
Reward-seeking behavior is essential for survival and is greatly influenced by experience, internal states, and physiological factors such as sleep. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is reward processing hub that integrates external and internal signals to regulate reward-seeking behaviors. However, it is not well understood how NAc activities during reward seeking may be shaped by learning experience, and to what extent that it may be subject to physiological regulations such as sleep. Here, we used in vivo fiber photometry to monitor calcium (Ca) activities in the NAc of male and female mice undergoing sucrose self-administration (SA) training. We found that the NAc Ca dynamics during sucrose SA were related to the behavioral outcome and evolved over different training stages. Moreover, acute sleep deprivation increased sucrose SA while reduced NAc Ca responses and dampened its sensitivity to reward update. Thus, our findings suggest that the NAc response during natural reward seeking is dynamic, adaptive to learning experience, and can be blunted by acute sleep deprivation.
寻求奖励行为对生存至关重要，且受经验、内部状态以及睡眠等生理因素的极大影响。伏隔核（NAc）是奖励处理中枢，整合外部和内部信号以调节寻求奖励行为。然而，目前尚不清楚在寻求奖励过程中伏隔核的活动如何受学习经验塑造，以及在多大程度上可能受睡眠等生理调节的影响。在此，我们使用体内光纤光度法监测接受蔗糖自我给药（SA）训练的雄性和雌性小鼠伏隔核中的钙（Ca）活动。我们发现，蔗糖SA期间伏隔核的钙动力学与行为结果相关，并在不同训练阶段发生演变。此外，急性睡眠剥夺增加了蔗糖SA，同时降低了伏隔核的钙反应并减弱了其对奖励更新的敏感性。因此，我们的研究结果表明，在自然奖励寻求过程中伏隔核的反应是动态的，适应学习经验，并且可被急性睡眠剥夺减弱。
