Topic: mesolimbic dopamine

Learning to predict rewards based on environmental cues is essential for survival. It is widely believed that animals learn to predict rewards by updating predictions whenever the outcome deviates from expectations. Such violations of predictions are called reward prediction errors (RPEs). RPEs are the critical teaching signal in the most widely accepted model for associative learning—temporal difference reinforcement learning (TDRL). As TDRL RPE has been successful at explaining the activity dynamics of dopamine, it has become the dominant theory of dopamine’s role as the critical regulator o

Hyperactivity is a persistent symptom of anorexia nervosa (AN) that often precedes occurrence of the disease, and constitutes a major barrier to recovery. Alteration of mesolimbic dopamine transmission has been hypothesized as a critical factor for the development and maintenance of AN and hyperactivity. However, the nature of dopamine dysfunction in AN, and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We therefore aimed at i) characterizing the impact of the activity-based anorexia (ABA) model on ventral tegmental area dopamine (VTADA) neurons and ii) determining whether restoring activity of VT