Persistent coding of outcome-predictive cue features in the rat nucleus accumbens

eLife

Matthijs AA van der Meer¹  James E Carmichael¹  Jimmie M Gmaz¹ 

[1] Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, United States;

关键词: credit assignment;    reinforcement learning;    motivated behavior;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.37275

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is important for learning from feedback, and for biasing and invigorating behaviour in response to cues that predict motivationally relevant outcomes. NAc encodes outcome-related cue features such as the magnitude and identity of reward. However, little is known about how features of cues themselves are encoded. We designed a decision making task where rats learned multiple sets of outcome-predictive cues, and recorded single-unit activity in the NAc during performance. We found that coding of cue identity and location occurred alongside coding of expected outcome. Furthermore, this coding persisted both during a delay period, after the rat made a decision and was waiting for an outcome, and after the outcome was revealed. Encoding of cue features in the NAc may enable contextual modulation of on-going behaviour, and provide an eligibility trace of outcome-predictive stimuli for updating stimulus-outcome associations to inform future behaviour.

【 授权许可】

Unknown