Topic: lateral nucleus accumbens

Phasic dopamine (DA) release plays a major role in learning by assigning incentive value to associated stimuli. A leading theory proposes that this process is analogous to a reinforcement learning algorithm called temporal difference (TD) learning, and that DA acts analogously to the reward prediction error (RPE) term within the TD algorithm. TD assigns reward predictions (values) to states by learning not only from rewards but also when its internal value estimates change, requiring an approximate temporal derivative calculation. Although many studies have demonstrated similarities between DA