Dopamine transients do not act as model-free prediction errors during associative learning

Dopamine neurons are proposed to signal the reward prediction error in model-free reinforcement learning algorithms. Here, the authors show that when given during an associative learning task, optogenetic activation of dopamine neurons causes associative, rather than value, learning.

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Melissa J. Sharpe, Hannah M. Batchelor, Lauren E. Mueller, Chun Yun Chang, Etienne J. P. Maes, Yael Niv, Geoffrey Schoenbaum
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2020-01-01
Series:Nature Communications
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13953-1