STRIATAL MECHANISMS OF INSTRUMENTAL PUNISHMENT LEARNING: A COMPARISON OF DOPAMINE BINDING IN DMS, DLS, TS AND MACBSH

Associative learning, which is learning the relationships between two events (Event 1 - Event 2) can be divided into four categories based on whether agency is involved in Event 1 and the valence of Event 2: Pavlovian reward learning, Pavlovian fear learning, instrumental reward learning and instrumental punishment learning. Whereas much is known about the roles of striatal dopamine in Pavlovian reward, Pavlovian fear as well as instrumental reward learning, less is known about the roles of striatal dopamine during instrumental punishment learning. Therefore, we aimed to map striatal dopamine profiles during punishment learning. We used dLight photometry to record dopamine binding in the dorsomedial striatum [DMS], dorsolateral striatum [DLS], tail of striatum [TS] and the ventral striatum [mAcbSh] in rats using a well-established primary punishment task. In this task, rats were first trained to press two levers for food under a VI-30 schedule. Then one response was punished, via footshock, on an FR-10 schedule, whereas the other response was not. Event-based analysis revealed that (1) DLS dopamine partitioned response-dependent appetitive and aversive outcome by direction and TS dopamine partitioned by magnitude; (2) punishment transforms dopamine activity during the punished response only in the mAcbSh but not the DMS, DLS or TS. Together, these data provide the first mapping of striatal dopamine during punishment learning and expanded the current understanding of striatal dopamine in associative learning.