Activation of serotonin neurons promotes active persistence in a probabilistic foraging task

Eran Lottem, Dhruba Banerjee, Pietro Vertechi, Dario Sarra, Matthijs oude Lohuis and Zachary F. Mainen ()
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Eran Lottem: Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown
Dhruba Banerjee: University of California
Pietro Vertechi: Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown
Dario Sarra: Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown
Matthijs oude Lohuis: University of Amsterdam
Zachary F. Mainen: Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract The neuromodulator serotonin (5-HT) has been implicated in a variety of functions that involve patience or impulse control. Many of these effects are consistent with a long-standing theory that 5-HT promotes behavioral inhibition, a motivational bias favoring passive over active behaviors. To further test this idea, we studied the impact of 5-HT in a probabilistic foraging task, in which mice must learn the statistics of the environment and infer when to leave a depleted foraging site for the next. Critically, mice were required to actively nose-poke in order to exploit a given site. We show that optogenetic activation of 5-HT neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus increases the willingness of mice to actively attempt to exploit a reward site before giving up. These results indicate that behavioral inhibition is not an adequate description of 5-HT function and suggest that a unified account must be based on a higher-order function.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03438-y

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