Dopamine Operates as a Subsecond Modulator of Food Seeking

• DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3823-03.2004
• Publication Date: 2004-02-11T22:28:00Z
• Authors: Mitchell F. Roitman; Garret D. Stuber; Paul E. M. Phillips; R. Mark Wightman; Regina M. Carelli
• Keywords: Male; Appetitive Behavior; Sucrose; Behavior, Animal; Dopamine; Drug Administration Routes; Self Administration; Electric Stimulation; Nucleus Accumbens; Electrodes, Implanted; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Food Preferences; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Acoustic Stimulation; Electrochemistry; Reaction Time; Animals; Conditioning, Operant; Cues; Photic Stimulation

The dopamine projection to the nucleus accumbens has been implicated in behaviors directed toward acquisition and consumption of natural rewards. neurochemical studies that established this link made time-averaged measurements over minutes, so precise temporal relationship between changes these is not known. To resolve this, we sampled every 100 msec using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry at carbon-fiber microelectrodes rats trained press a lever for sucrose. Cues signal opportunity respond sucrose evoked release (67 ± 20 n m ) with short latency (0.2 0.1 sec onset). When same cues were presented naive cue-sucrose pairing, similar signals observed. Thus, cue-evoked increases reflected learned association availability. Lever presses occurred peak surges. After presses, while was delivered consumed, no further detected. Rather, returned baseline levels. Together, results strongly implicate subsecond signaling as real-time modulator food-seeking behavior.