Topic: state-value signal

Dopamine (DA) in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) is a critical signal for both learning and motivation. While DA release dynamics are often associated with reward prediction errors, they also scale remarkably well with a state-value signal – expectations of reward from an animal’s current state. However, computing value in real-world environments poses a substantial computational problem. Expectations of future rewards from a given state depend on future actions and their reward likelihood. Computing state value, therefore, necessitates assumptions about future navigational choices. Furthermore, v