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What does the habenula tell dopamine neurons?

Reward-related events activate dopamine and other neurons in many brain areas. A report in Nature, however, now suggests that neurons in the lateral habenula signal to dopamine neurons when no reward is expected.

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Figure 1: Anatomical locations of primate lateral habenula and dopamine neurons and specific signals that they transmit during saccadic eye movements for large and small rewards.

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Kimura, M., Satoh, T. & Matsumoto, N. What does the habenula tell dopamine neurons?. Nat Neurosci 10, 677–678 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0607-677

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