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Updated: Oct 28, 2025

Presynaptic Dopamine Dynamics in Striatal Brain Slices with Fast-scan Cyclic Voltammetry
Published on: January 12, 2012
Phasic inhibition of dopamine neurons is an instrumental punisher
Constance Y Peng1, Philip Jean-Richard-Dit-Bressel1, Sophia Gilchrist2
1School of Psychology, University of New South Wales Sydney.
Abstract:
It is well established that the activity of VTA dopamine neurons is sufficient to serve as a Pavlovian reinforcer but whether this activity can also serve as instrumental reinforcer is less well understood. Here we studied the effects of optogenetic inhibition of VTA dopamine neurons in instrumental conditioning preparations. We show that optogenetic inhibition of VTA dopamine neurons causes a response-specific, contingency-sensitive suppression of instrumental responding. This suppression was due to instrumental response, not Pavlovian stimulus, learning and could not be attributed to deepened instrumental extinction learning. These effects of optogenetic inhibition of VTA dopamine neurons on instrumental responding are formally similar to the effects of aversive events in instrumental preparations and show that optogenetic inhibition of VTA dopamine neurons is sufficient to serve as an instrumental punisher. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
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