加拿大康科迪亚大学Mihaela D. Iordanova与美国马里兰大学医学院Geoffrey Schoenbaum等研究人员合作发现，多巴胺瞬变发挥时间差异预测误差作用。这一研究成果2020年1月20日在线发表在国际学术期刊《自然—神经科学》上。

据研究人员介绍，奖励引起的多巴胺瞬变被确定为预测误差。但是，时间差异解释的中心原理（即由奖励预测提示引起的类似瞬变也起着误差的作用）仍然未经检验。

通过发现在奖励预测提示的开始进行光遗传学分流多巴胺活性能够防止二级调节而不影响阻断，研究人员解决了这一问题。这些结果表明，提示引起的瞬变起到时间差异预测误差的作用，而不是奖励预测。

附：英文原文

Title: Causal evidence supporting the proposal that dopamine transients function as temporal difference prediction errors

Author: Etienne J. P Maes, Melissa J. Sharpe, Alexandra A. Usypchuk, Megan Lozzi, Chun Yun Chang, Matthew P. H. Gardner, Geoffrey Schoenbaum, Mihaela D. Iordanova

Issue&Volume: 2020-01-20

Abstract: Reward-evoked dopamine transients are well established as prediction errors. However, the central tenet of temporal difference accounts—that similar transients evoked by reward-predictive cues also function as errors—remains untested. In the present communication we addressed this by showing that optogenetically shunting dopamine activity at the start of a reward-predicting cue prevents second-order conditioning without affecting blocking. These results indicate that cue-evoked transients function as temporal-difference prediction errors rather than reward predictions.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-019-0574-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0574-1