Dissociation of dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens from intracranial self-stimulation

Paul A. Garris, Michaux Kilpatrick, Melissa A. Bunin, Darren Michael, Q. David Walker and R. Mark Wightman ()
Additional contact information
Paul A. Garris: 102 Felmley Hall, Illinois State University
Michaux Kilpatrick: Department of Chemistry and Curriculum in Neurobiology
Melissa A. Bunin: Department of Chemistry and Curriculum in Neurobiology
Darren Michael: Department of Chemistry and Curriculum in Neurobiology
Q. David Walker: Department of Chemistry and Curriculum in Neurobiology
R. Mark Wightman: Department of Chemistry and Curriculum in Neurobiology

Nature, 1999, vol. 398, issue 6722, 67-69

Abstract: Abstract Mesolimbic dopamine-releasing neurons appear to be important in the brain reward system1,2. One behavioural paradigm that supports this hypothesis is intracranial self-stimulation (ICS), during which animals repeatedly press a lever to stimulate their own dopamine-releasing neurons electrically3,4,5,6. Here we study dopamine release from dopamine terminals in the nucleus accumbens core and shell in the brain by using rapid-responding voltammetric microsensors7 during electrical stimulation of dopamine cell bodies in the ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra brain regions. In rats in which stimulating electrode placement failed to elicit dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, ICS behaviour was not learned. In contrast, ICS was acquired when stimulus trains evoked extracellular dopamine in either the core or the shell of the nucleus accumbens. In animals that could learn ICS, experimenter-delivered stimulation always elicited dopamine release. In contrast, extracellular dopamine was rarely observed during ICS itself. Thus, although activation of mesolimbic dopamine-releasing neurons seems to be a necessary condition for ICS, evoked dopamine release is actually diminished during ICS. Dopamine may therefore be a neural substrate for novelty8 or reward expectation9 rather than reward itself.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/18019 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:398:y:1999:i:6722:d:10.1038_18019

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/18019

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().