2008/09/11 by Henry H. Yin, Sean B. Ostlund, Bernard W. Balleine · 422 citations
Neuroscience · Psychology · #Basal ganglia #Central nervous system #Dopamine #Dopaminergic #Globus pallidus #Indirect pathway of movement #Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies #Neural dynamics and brain function #Neuroscience #Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior #Nucleus accumbens #Psychology #Reward system #Striatum #Ventral pallidum #Ventral striatum #Ventral tegmental area
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1460-9568.2008.06422.x
published in European Journal of Neuroscience 28(8), 1437-1448 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2008/09/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Here we challenge the view that reward-guided learning is solely controlled by the mesoaccumbens pathway arising from dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area and projecting to the nucleus accumbens. This widely accepted view assumes that reward is a monolithic concept, but recent work has suggested otherwise. It now appears that, in reward-guided learning, the functions of ventral and dorsal striata, and the cortico-basal ganglia circuitry associated with them, can be dissociated. Whereas the nucleus accumbens is necessary for the acquisition and expression of certain appetitive Pavlovian responses and contributes to the motivational control of instrumental performance, the dorsal striatum is necessary for the acquisition and expression of instrumental actions. Such findings suggest the existence of multiple independent yet interacting functional systems that are implemented in iterating and hierarchically organized cortico-basal ganglia networks engaged in appetitive behaviors ranging from Pavlovian approach responses to goal-directed instrumental actions controlled by action-outcome contingencies.