Abstract
Choosing between different course of behavioral response is an essential process to survive in a complex environment. Numerous studies have demonstrated that basic processes of action control may be investigated using instrumental conditioning, as instrumental response may be dissociated in goal-directed action or habitual response depending both on different, but interacting, neuronal circuits. The dopamine system is a central element in the coordination between actions and habits. In this chapter, we describe in details the different behavioral procedures used to investigate actions and habits in rodent models, including instrumental learning, outcome devaluation, and contingency degradation. We also discuss how these procedures can be combined with other techniques to specifically investigate the role of the dopamine system in these different processes.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Dickinson A (1985) Actions and habits: the development of behavioural autonomy. Philos Trans R Soc London B, Biol Sci 308:67–78
Balleine BW, Dickinson A (1998) Goal-directed instrumental action: contingency and incentive learning and their cortical substrates. Neuropharmacology 37:407–419
Valentin VV et al (2007) Determining the neural substrates of goal-directed learning in the human brain. J Neurosci 27:4019–4026
Tanaka SC et al (2008) Calculating consequences: brain systems that encode the causal effects of actions. J Neurosci 28:6750–6755
Rangel A et al (2008) A framework for studying the neurobiology of value-based decision making. Nat Rev Neurosci 9:545–556
Adams CD, Dickinson A (1981) Instrumental responding following Reinforcer devaluation. Q J Exp Psychol Sect B 33:109–121
Dickinson A (1994) Instrumental conditioning. In: Animal learning and cognition. Academic Press, San Diego, pp 45–79
Adams CD (1982) Variations in the sensitivity of instrumental responding to reinforcer devaluation. Q J Exp Psychol B Comp Physiol Psychol 34B:77–98
Dickinson A et al (1983) The effect of the instrumental training contingency on susceptibility to reinforcer devaluation. Q J Exp Psychol B Compar Physiol Psychol 35:35–51
Thrailkill EA, Bouton ME (2015) Contextual control of instrumental actions and habits. J Exp Psychol Anim Learn Cogn 41:69–80
Wickens JR et al (2007) Dopaminergic mechanisms in actions and habits. J Neurosci 27:8181–8183
Björklund A, Dunnett SB (2007) Dopamine neuron systems in the brain: an update. Trends Neurosci 30:194–202
Lammel S et al (2014) Reward and aversion in a heterogeneous midbrain dopamine system. Neuropharmacology 76 Pt B:351–359
Schultz W (2000) Multiple reward signals in the brain. Nat Rev Neurosci 1:199–207
Montague PR et al (2004) Computational roles for dopamine in behavioural control. Nature 431:760–767
Redgrave P, Gurney K (2006) The short-latency dopamine signal: a role in discovering novel actions? Nat Rev Neurosci 7:967–975
Bromberg-Martin ES et al (2010) Dopamine in motivational control: rewarding, aversive, and alerting. Neuron 68:815–834
Coutureau E, Parkes SL (2018) Cortical determinants of goal-directed behavior. In: Morris R et al (eds) Goal-directed decision making. Academic Press, pp 179–197
Naneix F et al (2009) A role for medial prefrontal dopaminergic innervation in instrumental conditioning. J Neurosci 29:6599–6606
Lex B, Hauber W (2010) The role of dopamine in the prelimbic cortex and the dorsomedial striatum in instrumental conditioning. Cereb Cortex 20:873–883
Hitchcott PK et al (2007) Bidirectional modulation of goal-directed actions by prefrontal cortical dopamine. Cereb Cortex 17:2820–2827
Naneix F et al (2012) Parallel maturation of goal-directed behavior and dopaminergic systems during adolescence. J Neurosci 32:16223–16232
Naneix F et al (2013) Adolescent stimulation of D2 receptors alters the maturation of dopamine-dependent goal-directed behavior. Neuropsychopharmacology 38:1566–1574
Braun S, Hauber W (2012) Striatal dopamine depletion in rats produces variable effects on contingency detection: task-related influences. Eur J Neurosci 35:486–495
Faure A (2005) Lesion to the Nigrostriatal Dopamine system disrupts stimulus-response habit formation. J Neurosci 25:2771–2780
Lex B, Hauber W (2010) The role of nucleus accumbens dopamine in outcome encoding in instrumental and Pavlovian conditioning. Neurobiol Learn Mem 93:283–290
Nelson A, Killcross S (2006) Amphetamine exposure enhances habit formation. J Neurosci 26:3805–3812
Nordquist RE et al (2007) Augmented reinforcer value and accelerated habit formation after repeated amphetamine treatment. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 17:532–540
Nelson AJD, Killcross S (2013) Accelerated habit formation following amphetamine exposure is reversed by D1, but enhanced by D2, receptor antagonists. Front Neurosci 7:76
Furlong TM et al (2017) Pulling habits out of rats: adenosine 2A receptor antagonism in dorsomedial striatum rescues meth-amphetamine-induced deficits in goal-directed action. Addict Biol 22:172–183
Furlong TM et al (2018) Methamphetamine promotes habitual action and alters the density of striatal glutamate receptor and vesicular proteins in dorsal striatum. Addict Biol 23:857–867
Corbit LH et al (2014) Effects of repeated cocaine exposure on habit learning and reversal by N-acetylcysteine. Neuropsychopharmacology 39:1893–1901
LeBlanc KH et al (2013) Repeated cocaine exposure facilitates the expression of incentive motivation and induces habitual control in rats. PLoS One 8:e61355
Vandaele Y, Ahmed SH (2021) Habit, choice, and addiction. Neuropsychopharmacology 46:689–698
Alcaraz F et al (2018) Thalamocortical and corticothalamic pathways differentially contribute to goal-directed behaviors in the rat. elife 7:e32517
Fresno V et al (2019) A thalamocortical circuit for updating action-outcome associations. elife 8:e46187
Parkes SL et al (2016) A time course analysis of satiety-induced instrumental outcome devaluation. Learn Behav 44:347–355
Parkes SL et al (2018) Insular and ventrolateral orbitofrontal Cortices differentially contribute to goal-directed behavior in Rodents. Cereb Cortex 28:2313–2325
Tantot F et al (2017) The effect of high-fat diet consumption on appetitive instrumental behavior in rats. Appetite 108:203–211
Tran-Tu-Yen DAS et al (2009) Transient role of the rat prelimbic cortex in goal-directed behaviour. Eur J Neurosci 30:464–471
Yin HH, Knowlton BJ (2006) The role of the basal ganglia in habit formation. Nat Rev Neurosci 7:464–476
Bradfield LA et al (2020) Goal-directed actions transiently depend on dorsal hippocampus. Nat Neurosci 23:1194–1197
Killcross S, Coutureau E (2003) Coordination of actions and habits in the medial prefrontal cortex of rats. Cereb Cortex 13:400–408
Trask S, Bouton ME (2014) Contextual control of operant behavior: evidence for hierarchical associations in instrumental learning. Learn Behav 42:281–288
Hammond LJ (1980) The effect of contingency upon the appetitive conditioning of free-operant behavior. J Exp Anal Behav 34:297–304
Colwill RM, Rescorla RA (1986) Associative structures in instrumental learning. In: Bower GH (ed) Psychology of learning and motivation. Academic Press, pp 55–104
Dickinson A, Mulatero CW (1989) Reinforcer specificity of the suppression of instrumental performance on a non-contingent schedule. Behav Process 19:167–180
Dias-Ferreira E et al (2009) Chronic stress causes frontostriatal reorganization and affects decision-making. Science 325:621–625
Stuber GD et al (2015) Considerations when using cre-driver rodent lines for studying ventral tegmental area circuitry. Neuron 85:439–445
Lammel S et al (2015) Diversity of transgenic mouse models for selective targeting of midbrain dopamine neurons. Neuron 85:429–438
Morceau S et al (2019) Targeting reciprocally connected brain regions through CAV-2 mediated interventions. Front Mol Neurosci 12:303
Cerpa J-C et al (2020) Targeting Catecholaminergic systems in transgenic rats with a CAV-2 vector Harboring a Cre-dependent DREADD Cassette. Front Mol Neurosci 13:121
Gunaydin LA et al (2014) Natural neural projection dynamics underlying social behavior. Cell 157:1535–1551
Labouesse MA et al (2020) GPCR-based Dopamine sensors-A detailed guide to inform sensor choice for in vivo imaging. Int J Mol Sci 21:E8048
Ducrocq F et al (2019) Decrease in operant responding under obesogenic diet exposure is not related to deficits in incentive or Hedonic processes. Obesity (Silver Spring) 27:255–263
Naneix F et al (2019) Investigating the effect of physiological need states on palatability and motivation using microstructural analysis of licking. Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2019.10.036
Gremel CM, Costa RM (2013) Orbitofrontal and striatal circuits dynamically encode the shift between goal-directed and habitual actions. Nat Commun 4:2264
Bouton ME (2021) Context, attention, and the switch between habit and goal-direction in behavior. Learn Behav 49:349–362
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Naneix, F., Coutureau, E. (2023). Dopaminergic Control of Actions and Habits. In: Fuentealba-Evans, J.A., Henny, P. (eds) Dopaminergic System Function and Dysfunction: Experimental Approaches. Neuromethods, vol 193. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2799-0_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2799-0_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-2798-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-2799-0
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols