Ventral striatal dopamine encodes unique properties of visual stimuli in mice

Abstract

Previously, we used the genetically encoded dopamine sensor dLight1 to show that mice modeling the neurodevelopmental disorder neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) have enhanced dopaminergic responses to salient visual stimuli in the lateral nucleus accumbens/ventral striatum (LNAc), as well as more vigorous behavioral responses to visual threats (Robinson et al., 2019). Here, we sought to better understand the nature of this phenotype by testing the ability of striatal dopamine release to encode the properties of sensory stimuli, including threatening looming discs, in typically developing mice. In this Research Advance, we report that ventral striatum dopamine release encodes the rate and magnitude of environmental luminance changes rather than the perceived threat intensity of the stimulus. These visually-evoked dopamine responses are wavelength-dependent at low irradiances, independent of the circadian cycle, and relatively robust to previous exposure history. Thus, we have further elaborated the mesolimbic dopamine system's ability to encode visual information in mice, which may be altered in neurodevelopmental disease models.

Striatal dopamine release reflects a domain-general prediction error

“…However, recent work has questioned this interpretation. Dopamine signals have been found to correlate with, and influence learning about, variables that are not strictly value, including movement probability, interval timing, and sensory stimulus properties [7][8][9][10] . Dopamine neuron activity also signals errors in predictions derived from value that must be inferred from task models 11,12 .…”