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The DOI matches its Crossref record; 14 of the 14 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Arithmetic and local circuitry underlying dopamine prediction errors

Open access
Eshel, Neir, Bukwich, Michael, Rao, Vinod, Hemmelder, Vivian, Tian, Ju, Uchida, Naoshige·2015·Nature

Abstract

Dopamine neurons are thought to facilitate learning by comparing actual and expected reward. Despite two decades of investigation, little is known about how this comparison is made. To determine how dopamine neurons calculate prediction error, we combined optogenetic manipulations with extracellular recordings in the ventral tegmental area while mice engaged in classical conditioning. Here we demonstrate, by manipulating the temporal expectation of reward, that dopamine neurons perform subtraction, a computation that is ideal for reinforcement learning but rarely observed in the brain. Furthermore, selectively exciting and inhibiting neighbouring GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid) neurons in the ventral tegmental area reveals that these neurons are a source of subtraction: they inhibit dopamine neurons when reward is expected, causally contributing to prediction-error calculations. Finally, bilaterally stimulating ventral tegmental area GABA neurons dramatically reduces anticipatory licking to conditioned odours, consistent with an important role for these neurons in reinforcement learning. Together, our results uncover the arithmetic and local circuitry underlying dopamine prediction errors.

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Metadata

Authors
Eshel, N., Bukwich, M., Rao, V., Hemmelder, V., Tian, J., & Uchida, N.
Venue
Nature
Published
2015-08-31
Volume
525
Issue
7568
Pages
243-246
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W2152681028
Cited by
392
References
14
FWCI
16.08
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Arithmetic and local circuitry underlying dopamine prediction errors. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1038/nature14855
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Eshel, N., Bukwich, M., Rao, V., Hemmelder, V., Tian, J., & Uchida, N. (2015). Arithmetic and local circuitry underlying dopamine prediction errors. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14855

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