Learning a new behavioral strategy in the shuttle-box increases prefrontal dopamine

Using microdialysis from medial prefrontal cortex of gerbils during aversive auditory conditioning in the shuttle-box we have previously shown a transient increase of dopamine efflux correlated with the establishment of avoidance behavior. We hypothesized that the acquisition of a new behavioral strategy is generally accompanied by this extra prefrontal dopamine release. The present experiment aimed at further testing this hypothesis. In a pre-training period in the shuttle-box the gerbils acquired an active avoidance response by generalizing two different tone signals to a GO-meaning (change of shuttle-box compartment). Thereafter, they were subjected in relearning sessions to differentially associate the known tone stimuli with GO- and NOGO- (no change of shuttle-box compartment) conditions, respectively. The following formation of discrimination behavior led to a similar extra dopamine increase as found during establishment of the avoidance strategy. This significant enhancement was limited to rapidly relearning individuals. Furthermore, the dopamine increase attenuated in these animals with increasing performance during the course of the discrimination training, similar to the retrieval stage of the avoidance strategy. Therefore, the dopamine system seems to be critically involved in the initial formation of associations for new behavioral strategies, i.e. learning. We assume that the prefrontal dopamine increase during initial learning of the complex discrimination behavior indicates an involvement of working memory principles and a goal-directed formation of a behavioral strategy.