Kavli Affiliate: John Reynolds
| Authors: Yan-Feng Zhang, Jean-Philippe Dufour, Peter Zatka-Haas, Peter Redgrave, Melony J Black, Armin Lak, Ed Mann, Stephanie J Cragg, Wickliffe Abraham and John NJ Reynolds
| Summary:
In classical Pavlovian conditioning, it is well-established that midbrain dopamine neurons respond to conditioned stimuli (CS) that predict a reward. However, how the dopamine neurons associate a neutral CS to a reward remains unknown. Here, we show that the superior colliculus (SC) develops neuronal responses to a visual CS during conditioning, which in turn drive the responses of dopamine neurons. Visual responses in the SC were only potentiated when a behaviorally meaningful time interval separated the visual stimulus and reward. Potentiation also required the convergence of visual, dopamine and serotonin inputs to the SC. Importantly, blocking potentiation of the visual response was sufficient to suppress the dopamine responses following a CS. These results reveal a mechanism for how the brain forms associations between unconditioned stimuli and behaviorally meaningful visual information during classical conditioning.