TY - JOUR
T1 - Activation of serotonin neurons promotes active persistence in a probabilistic foraging task
AU - Lottem, Eran
AU - Banerjee, Dhruba
AU - Vertechi, Pietro
AU - Sarra, Dario
AU - Lohuis, Matthijs Oude
AU - Mainen, Zachary F.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s).
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85045869249&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-018-03438-y
DO - 10.1038/s41467-018-03438-y
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C2 - 29520000
AN - SCOPUS:85045869249
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 9
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 1000
ER -