Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Activity in human ventral striatum locked to errors of reward prediction

Abstract

The mesolimbic dopaminergic system has long been known to be involved in the processing of rewarding stimuli1, although recent evidence from animal research has suggested a more specific role of signaling errors in the prediction of rewards2,3. We tested this hypothesis in humans, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and an operant conditioning paradigm for the discrete delivery of small quantities of fruit juice, along with a control experiment in which juice was substituted with a neutral visual stimulus. A local estimation of the activity in the ventral striatum showed a significant differentiation when the juice was withheld at the expected time of delivery; this finding was not replicated in the case of visual stimulation, providing evidence for time-locked processing of reward prediction errors in human ventral striatum.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Experimental design.
Figure 2
Figure 3: Average BOLD responses across subjects for the Regular and Delayed trials.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Spanagel, R. & Weiss, F. Trends Neurosci. 22, 521–527 (1999).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Ljungberg, T., Apicella, P. & Schultz, W. J. Neurophysiol. 67, 145–163 (1992).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Schultz, W., Dayan, P. & Montague, P. R. Science 275, 1593–1599 (1997).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Berns, G. S., McClure, S. M., Pagnoni, G. & Montague, P. R. J. Neurosci. 21, 2793–2798 (2001).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Horvitz, J. C. Neuroscience 96, 651–656 (2000).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Cox, R. W. Comput. Biomed. Res. 29, 162–173 (1996).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Duvernoy, H. M. The Human Brain (Springer-Verlag, Vienna, 1999).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  8. Ward, B. D. in AFNI 3dDeconvolve Documentation (Medical College of Wisconsin, 2001).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Cohen, M. S. Neuroimage 6, 93–103 (1997).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Ikemoto, S. & Panksepp, J. Brain Res. Brain. Res. Rev. 31, 6–41 (1999).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Elliott, R., Friston, K. J. & Dolan, R. J. J. Neurosci. 20, 6159–6165 (2000).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Delgado, M. R., Nystrom, L. E., Fissell, C., Noll, D. C. & Fiez, J. A. J. Neurophysiol. 84, 3072–3077 (2000).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Breiter, H. C. & Rosen, B. R. Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 877, 523–547 (1999).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA00367, DA11723), National Institute of Mental Health (MH61010) and the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giuseppe Pagnoni.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Pagnoni, G., Zink, C., Montague, P. et al. Activity in human ventral striatum locked to errors of reward prediction. Nat Neurosci 5, 97–98 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn802

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn802

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing