Contextual novelty changes reward representations in the striatum

82Citations
Citations of this article
211Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

Reward representation in ventral striatum is boosted by perceptual novelty, although the mechanism of this effect remains elusive. Animal studies indicate a functional loop (Lisman and Grace, 2005) that includes hippocampus, ventral striatum, and midbrain as being important in regulating salience attribution within the context of novel stimuli. According to this model, reward responses in ventral striatum or midbrain should be enhanced in the context of novelty even if reward and novelty constitute unrelated, independent events. Using fMRI, we show that trials with reward-predictive cues and subsequent outcomes elicit higher responses in the striatum if preceded by an unrelated novel picture, indicating that reward representation is enhanced in the context of novelty. Notably, this effect was observed solely when reward occurrence, and hence reward-related salience, was low. These findings support a view that contextual novelty enhances neural responses underlying reward representation in the striatum and concur with the effects of novelty processing as predicted by the model of Lisman and Grace (2005). Copyright © 2010 the authors.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Guitart-Masip, M., Bunzeck, N., Stephan, K. E., Dolan, R. J., & Düzel, E. (2010). Contextual novelty changes reward representations in the striatum. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(5), 1721–1726. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5331-09.2010

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free