Journal
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 34, Issue 43, Pages 14349-14364Publisher
SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3492-14.2014
Keywords
cue-excited neurons; discriminative stimulus; dopamine; nucleus accumbens; reward seeking
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health [DA019473, DA038412, MH092757]
- National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression
- Klarman Family Foundation
- Peter F. McManus Charitable Trust
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Approach to reward is a fundamental adaptive behavior, disruption of which is a core symptom of addiction and depression. Nucleus accumbens (NAc) dopamine is required for reward-predictive cues to activate vigorous reward seeking, but the underlying neural mechanism is unknown. Reward-predictive cues elicit both dopamine release in the NAc and excitations and inhibitions in NAc neurons. However, a direct link has not been established between dopamine receptor activation, NAc cue-evoked neuronal activity, and reward-seeking behavior. Here, we use a novel microelectrode array that enables simultaneous recording of neuronal firing and local dopamine receptor antagonist injection. We demonstrate that, in the NAc of rats performing a discriminative stimulus task for sucrose reward, blockade of either D1 or D2 receptors selectively attenuates excitation, but not inhibition, evoked by reward-predictive cues. Furthermore, we establish that this dopamine-dependent signal is necessary for reward-seeking behavior. These results demonstrate a neural mechanism by which NAc dopamine invigorates environmentally cued reward-seeking behavior.
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