Learning From Your Mistakes: The Role of Dopamine Activity in Prediction Errors

BrainPost, 11 February 2020

Understanding how associative learning occurs in the brain is one of the most important questions in neuroscience. One of the key concepts in associative learning relates to the idea of a prediction error — a mismatch between what we expect to happen and what actually happens. Both humans and animals use prediction errors to learn; the greater the error, the greater the learning. Prediction errors can be calculated using the method of temporal difference. The ability to map millisecond by millisecond changes in neuronal dopamine firing activity has been a major step forward in understanding prediction errors. However, there are still aspects of prediction errors that are yet to be fully explored. Previous research has demonstrated that optogenetics can be used to shunt—or attenuate—neuronal dopamine activity to prevent learning about a reward when it is delivered. Read more.