Study Author Thorsten Kahnt, Ph.D.
Featured Paper of the Month – April 2025
Published in Current Biology by Thorsten Kahnt of the NIDA IRP Learning and Decision-Making Unit.
Summary
Neural responses in the dopaminergic midbrain are known to respond to unexpected changes in the value of predicted rewards (that is, how pleasant, appetitive, or preferrable the rewards are). Recent studies across different species have shown that this brain area also responds to unexpected changes in sensory features of predicted rewards, even when these features are unrelated to value. To support learning of predictive associations, such identity prediction errors (iPEs) should contain specific information about what was mis-predicted. In this study, we used pattern-based analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data collected during a learning task to examine the information content of iPE responses in the human midbrain. We found that midbrain responses to identity prediction errors contained information about the identity of the unexpectedly received rewards (positive iPE), but not about the identity of omitted rewards (negative iPE). These findings demonstrate that midbrain responses convey information about the identity of unexpected outcomes, which could help forming associations between stimuli and specific outcomes.
Publication Information
Distributed midbrain responses signal the content of positive identity prediction errors Journal Article
In: Curr Biol, vol. 34, no. 18, pp. 4240–4247.e4, 2024, ISSN: 1879-0445.
