Acute Stress Enhances Associative Learning via Dopamine Signaling in the Ventral Lateral Striatum

• DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3003-19.2020
• Publication Date: 2020-04-22T21:49:25Z
• Authors: Claire E. Stelly; Sean C. Tritley; Yousef Rafati; Matthew J. Wanat
• Keywords: Ventral striatum; Associative learning; Associative property; Reward system

Acute stress transiently increases vigilance, enhancing the detection of salient stimuli in one's environment. This increased perceptual sensitivity is thought to promote association rewarding outcomes with relevant cues. The mesolimbic dopamine system critical for learning cue-reward associations. Dopamine levels ventral striatum are elevated following exposure stress. Together, this suggests that could mediate influence acute on learning. To address possibility, we examined how a single stressful experience influenced an appetitive pavlovian conditioning task. Male rats underwent episode restraint prior first session. treatment augmented conditioned responding subsequent sessions. Voltammetry recordings demonstrated selectively reward-evoked release lateral (VLS), but not medial striatum. Antagonizing receptors VLS blocked stress-induced enhancement responding. Collectively, these findings illustrate engages signaling facilitate learning.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT influences about aversive and outcomes. neurons sensitive reward However, it unclear whether regulates via signaling. Using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry as conditioning, demonstrate enhanced signal accompanies long-lasting increase behavioral These highlight node mediating effect processing.