There is active debate on the role of dopamine in processing aversive stimuli, where inferred roles range from no involvement at all, to signaling an aversive-prediction error (APE). Here, we systematically investigate dopamine release in the nucleus-accumbens core (NAC), which is closely linked to reward-prediction errors, in rats exposed to white noise (WN, a versatile, underutilized, aversive stimulus) and its predictive cues. Both induced a negative dopamine ramp, followed by slow signal recovery upon stimulus cessation. In contrast to reward conditioning, this dopamine signal was unaffected by WN value, context valence, or probabilistic contingencies, and the WN dopamine-response shifted only partially towards its predictive cue. However, unpredicted WN provoked slower post-stimulus signal recovery than predicted WN. Despite differing signal qualities, dopamine responses to simultaneous presentation of rewarding and aversive stimuli were additive. Together, our findings demonstrate that instead of an APE, NAC dopamine primarily tracks prediction and duration of aversive events.

中文翻译：

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伏隔核多巴胺跟踪厌恶刺激持续时间和预测，但不跟踪价值或预测错误

关于多巴胺在处理厌恶刺激中的作用存在积极的争论，其中推断的作用范围从根本不参与到发出厌恶预测错误 (APE)。在这里，我们系统地研究了暴露于白噪声（WN，一种多功能、未充分利用的厌恶刺激）的大鼠中伏隔核核心 (NAC) 中的多巴胺释放及其预测线索，这与奖励预测错误密切相关。两者都诱导了负多巴胺斜坡，然后在刺激停止后缓慢恢复信号。与奖励条件反射相反，这种多巴胺信号不受 WN 值、上下文效价或概率偶发事件的影响，并且 WN 多巴胺反应仅部分转向其预测线索。然而，与预测的 WN 相比，未预测的 WN 引起了更慢的刺激后信号恢复。尽管信号质量不同，多巴胺对同时呈现的奖励和厌恶刺激的反应是相加的。总之，我们的研究结果表明，NAC 多巴胺主要跟踪厌恶事件的预测和持续时间，而不是 APE。