Phasic mesolimbic dopamine release tracks reward seeking during expression of Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer

摘要

BackgroundRecent theories addressing mesolimbic dopamine’s role in reward processing emphasize two apparently distinct functions, one in reinforcement learning (i.e. prediction error) and another in incentive motivation (i.e. the invigoration of reward-seeking elicited by reward-paired cues). Here we evaluate the latter.