Reward articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pavlovian conditioning involves model-free learning that associates predictive stimuli with their outcome value. Here, the authors present evidence for activation of OFC and striatum that is consistent with model based information during a pavlovian task with multiple stimuli that predict rewards.

    • Wolfgang M. Pauli
    • , Giovanni Gentile
    •  & John P. O’Doherty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When learning about rewards and threats in the environment, animals often need to learn the value associated with conjunctions of features, not just individual features. Here, the authors show that the hippocampus forms conjunctive representations that are dissociable from individual feature components.

    • Ian C. Ballard
    • , Anthony D. Wagner
    •  & Samuel M. McClure

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The reinforcement learning literature suggests decisions are based on a model-free system, operating retrospectively, and a model-based system, operating prospectively. Here, the authors show that a model-based retrospective inference of a reward’s cause, guides model-free credit-assignment.

    • Rani Moran
    • , Mehdi Keramati
    •  & Raymond J. Dolan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Choices between goods often depend on the action costs, but the mechanisms underlying economic decisions under variable action cost are poorly understood. Here, the authors record from neurons in the monkey orbitofrontal cortex and show that decisions under variable action cost were made in a non-spatial representation.

    • Xinying Cai
    •  & Camillo Padoa-Schioppa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It has proven difficult to measure the release of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, in the human brain. Here, the authors introduce and validate a new method that infers dopamine release based on minute-by-minute fluctuations of the positron emission tomography (PET) radioligand [11C]raclopride.

    • Rachel N. Lippert
    • , Anna Lena Cremer
    •  & Heiko Backes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In the ventral basal ganglia circuit, the ventral pallidum (VP) receives major inputs from the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and is involved in reward processing. Here, the authors report that, contrary to the accepted model, signals related to the relative value of reward in VP emerge before NAc and are more robust.

    • David Ottenheimer
    • , Jocelyn M. Richard
    •  & Patricia H. Janak

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Working memory (WM) is represented in persistent activity of single neurons as well as a dynamic population code. Here, the authors find that neurons flexibly switch their coding according to current attention while those with stable resting activity maintain WM representations through dynamic activity patterns.

    • Sean E. Cavanagh
    • , John P. Towers
    •  & Steven W. Kennerley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous work has shown that the neural representation of value adapts to the recent history of rewards. Here, the authors report that a computational model based on divisive normalization over multiple timescales can explain changes in value coding driven by changes in the reward statistics.

    • Jan Zimmermann
    • , Paul W. Glimcher
    •  & Kenway Louie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have alteration in social and novelty behaviors. Here, Bellone and colleagues show that chemogenetic inhibition of mouse dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area can blunt exploration towards unfamiliar conspecifics, and that these behavioral deficits are recapitulated in mice lacking neuroligin3 gene product.

    • Sebastiano Bariselli
    • , Hanna Hörnberg
    •  & Camilla Bellone

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While making up a small percentage of neurons in the nucleus accumbens, somatostatin interneurons may have important function in dopamine- and addiction-related behavior. Here, Ribeiro and colleagues show that somatostatin interneurons regulate behavioral responses to cocaine with physiological and transcriptomic changes.

    • Efrain A. Ribeiro
    • , Marine Salery
    •  & Eric J. Nestler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Individual animals differ in behavioral traits, but the mechanisms underlying individuation are unclear. Here, the authors show that mice living in a ‘city’ develop individual behavior differences, associated with changes in dopamine cell firing, that can be reversed on moving them to a different social environment.

    • N. Torquet
    • , F. Marti
    •  & P. Faure

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neuroeconomic theories suggest that conflict during decision, such as exhibited by relapsing drug addicts who continue drug use despite stated wishes not to, might arise from separable processes in decision making. Here the authors test mice in a foraging task designed to separate these processes and find that mice show alterations in separable components of decision conflict following abstinence from cocaine versus morphine.

    • Brian M. Sweis
    • , A. David Redish
    •  & Mark J. Thomas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Serotonin (5-HT) plays many important roles in reward, punishment, patience and beyond, and optogenetic stimulation of 5-HT neurons has not crisply parsed them. The authors report a novel analysis of a reward-based decision-making experiment, and show that 5-HT stimulation increases the learning rate, but only on a select subset of choices.

    • Kiyohito Iigaya
    • , Madalena S. Fonseca
    •  & Peter Dayan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dopamine neurons encode reward prediction errors (RPE) that report the mismatch between expected reward and outcome for a given state. Here the authors report that when there is uncertainty about the current state, RPEs are calculated on the probabilistic representation of the current state or belief state.

    • Benedicte M. Babayan
    • , Naoshige Uchida
    •  & Samuel. J. Gershman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Trial and error learning requires the brain to generate expectations and match them to outcomes, yet whether this occurs for semantic learning is unclear. Here, authors show that the brain encodes the degree to which new factual information violates expectations, which in turn determines whether information is encoded in long-term memory.

    • Alex Pine
    • , Noa Sadeh
    •  & Avi Mendelsohn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    μ-opioid signalling has a known role in the response to various rewarding stimuli, including pleasant foods. Here, Nummenmaa et al. show using PET and fMRI that individual differences in brain μ-opioid receptor density predict the strength of the neural response to highly palatable foods in humans

    • Lauri Nummenmaa
    • , Tiina Saanijoki
    •  & Kari Kalliokoski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Human speech and bird song requires the generation of precisely timed motor patterns. The authors show that zebra finches can learn to independently modify the duration of individual song segments and find that synfire chain networks are ideally suited to implement such flexible motor timing.

    • Cengiz Pehlevan
    • , Farhan Ali
    •  & Bence P. Ölveczky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Adolescence is associated with negative behaviors that are related to enhanced reward-related striatal activity, but it is unclear whether this activity could also be beneficial. Here, authors report longitudinal data showing that enhanced striatal activity is related with increased learning ability.

    • S. Peters
    •  & E. A. Crone

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ventromedial prefrontal cortex in humans shows functional magnetic resonance imaging signals related to the subjective values of choices that are taken during decision-making as well as task-negative signals. Here, the authors report that in macaque ventromedial prefrontal cortex both activity patterns are inverted and lesions of this area disrupt subjective choice evaluation.

    • Georgios K. Papageorgiou
    • , Jerome Sallet
    •  & Matthew F. S. Rushworth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While non-caloric artificial sweeteners (NAS) are used as food additives, it’s unclear whether animals perceive NAS as positive or negative percept. Here, Musso and colleagues show in Drosophila that NAS is a negative percept, encoded in a new type of memory.

    • Pierre-Yves Musso
    • , Aurélie Lampin-Saint-Amaux
    •  & Thomas Preat

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Making a good decision often requires the weighing of relative short-term rewards against long-term benefits, yet how the brain does this is not understood. Here, authors show that long-term beliefs are biased by reward experience and that dissociable brain regions facilitate both types of learning.

    • Adrian G. Fischer
    • , Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde
    •  & Markus Ullsperger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    During economic decisions, offer value cells in orbitofrontal cortex encode the values of offered goods and undergo range adaptation. Here the authors present a theory of optimal coding based on payoff maximization. For linear tuning functions, range adaptation in offer value cells ensures maximal expected payoff.

    • Aldo Rustichini
    • , Katherine E. Conen
    •  & Camillo Padoa-Schioppa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High gamma activity (HGA) and local neurons encode similar information, but it’s unclear if this is true when neurons are heterogeneous, as in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Here, Rich & Wallis show that HGA in OFC is closely related to neuron firing, but reveals clearer spatiotemporal dynamics.

    • Erin L. Rich
    •  & Joni D. Wallis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    People often assume that other people share their preferences, but how exactly this bias manifests itself in learning and decision-making is unclear. Here, authors show that a person's own preferences influence learning in both social and non-social situations, and that this bias improves performance.

    • Tor Tarantola
    • , Dharshan Kumaran
    •  & Benedetto De Martino

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spike timing dependent plasticity (STDP) has been studied extensively in slices but whether such pairings can induce plasticity in vivo is not known. Here the authors report an experimental paradigm that achieves bidirectional corticostriatal STDP in vivo through modulation by behaviourally relevant reinforcement signals, mediated by dopamine and adenosine signaling.

    • Simon D. Fisher
    • , Paul B. Robertson
    •  & John N.J. Reynolds

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The influence of insulin on food preference and the corresponding underlying neural circuits are unknown in humans. Here, the authors show that increasing insulin changes food preference by modulating mesolimbic neural circuits, and that this pattern is changed in insulin-resistant individuals.

    • Lena J. Tiedemann
    • , Sebastian M. Schmid
    •  & Stefanie Brassen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Distinct subsets of dopaminergic PAM neurons have been shown to be involved in short-term and long-term memory for sugar reward. Here the authors report the neural circuits and the cellular and molecular mechanisms for short-term and long-term memory for water reward in thirstyDrosophila.

    • Wei-Huan Shyu
    • , Tai-Hsiang Chiu
    •  & Chia-Lin Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some adolescents seek novelty, but it is unknown whether the brain circuits underlying this behaviour can be used to predict later, problematic behaviour. Here, authors show that diminished ventral striatal and prefrontal activity in response to anticipated rewards at age 14 in these individuals predicts problematic drug use at age 16.

    • Christian Büchel
    • , Jan Peters
    •  & Veronika Ziesch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sex differences in reward processing are at present poorly understood. Calipari and Juarezet al. report oestrous cycle-dependent fluctuations in firing of VTA dopamine neurons that drive alterations in DAT function expressed in terminals in the NAc. These differences underlie enhanced cocaine reward processing during oestrus.

    • Erin S. Calipari
    • , Barbara Juarez
    •  & Eric J Nestler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ventral tegmental area (VTA) is involved in reward behaviours, but the precise contribution of VTA glutamatergic neurons to this process is not known. Here the authors show that phasic but not sustained optogenetic stimulation of VTA glutamatergic neurons is rewarding and involves co-release of GABA.

    • Ji Hoon Yoo
    • , Vivien Zell
    •  & Thomas S. Hnasko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reward seeking behaviors involve dopamine (DA) release but the circuits underlying avoidance behavior remain comparatively understudied. Here the authors show that phasic increases in DA release in rats are higher for reward and avoidance cues compared with neutral cues and are positively correlated with poor avoidance.

    • Ronny N. Gentry
    • , Brian Lee
    •  & Matthew R. Roesch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The dorsal striatum (DS) is a brain region that is thought to aim actions at certain or known rewards. Here, the authors show that an internal-capsule bordering region of the primate DS signals the uncertainty of object-reward associations, suggesting a novel role for the DS in behavior under uncertainty.

    • J. Kael White
    •  & Ilya E. Monosov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Economic decisions are based on perceived reward value but it is unclear how individual neurons encode value estimates as input for decision mechanisms. Here authors show that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex uses a dynamic value code based on object-specific valuations by single neurons.

    • Ken-Ichiro Tsutsui
    • , Fabian Grabenhorst
    •  & Wolfram Schultz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Humans can learn alone or by watching others, strategies which may depend on similar or different neural networks. This study shows that people watching other players in a card game used computations in neurons of their rostral anterior cingulate cortex to learn through observation.

    • Michael R. Hill
    • , Erie D. Boorman
    •  & Itzhak Fried

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The influence of context on value-based choice is well established but the neural correlates associated with this remain poorly understood. Here the authors perform fMRI in human subjects and find that the hippocampus and ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra are associated with the degree of influence of context on choice behaviour.

    • Francesco Rigoli
    • , Karl J. Friston
    •  & Raymond J. Dolan

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