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How Visual Stimuli Activate Dopaminergic Neurons at Short Latency
Eleanor Dommett,1*Véronique Coizet,1*Charles D. Blaha,2John Martindale,1Véronique Lefebvre,1Natalie Walton,1John E. W. Mayhew,1Paul G. Overton,1Peter Redgrave1
Unexpected, biologically salient stimuli elicit a short-latency,phasic response in midbrain dopaminergic (DA) neurons. Althoughthis signal is important for reinforcement learning, the informationit conveys to forebrain target structures remains uncertain.One way to decode the phasic DA signal would be to determinethe perceptual properties of sensory inputs to DA neurons. Afterlocal disinhibition of the superior colliculus in anesthetizedrats, DA neurons became visually responsive, whereas disinhibitionof the visual cortex was ineffective. As the primary sourceof visual afferents, the limited processing capacities of thecolliculus may constrain the visual information content of phasicDA responses.
1 Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TP, UK. 2 Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
* These authors contributed equally to this work.
Present address: Department of Psychology, University of Memphis,Memphis, TN 38152–3230, USA.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: P.Redgrave{at}sheffield.ac.uk
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Present address: Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152–3230, USA. 
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: 
