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Surprise! Dopamine signals mix action, value and error

Two studies invite us to reconsider the nature of striatal dopamine signals. Accumbens dopamine appears to signal the value of overt action and prediction errors arise from deviations in these signals.

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Figure 1: Functions of dopamine in action and learning.

Debbie Maizels/Nature Publishing Group

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Correspondence to Anne G E Collins or Michael J Frank.

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Collins, A., Frank, M. Surprise! Dopamine signals mix action, value and error. Nat Neurosci 19, 3–5 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4207

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