Dopamine plays a central role in motivating and modifying behavior, serving to invigorate current behavioral performance and guide future actions through learning. Here we examine how this single neuromodulator can contribute to such diverse forms of behavioral modulation. By recording from the dopaminergic reinforcement pathways of the Drosophila mushroom body during active odor navigation, we reveal how their ongoing motor-associated activity relates to goal-directed behavior. We found that dopaminergic neurons correlate with different behavioral variables depending on the specific navigational strategy of an animal, such that the activity of these neurons preferentially reflects the actions most relevant to odor pursuit. Furthermore, we show that these motor correlates are translated to ongoing dopamine release, and acutely perturbing dopaminergic signaling alters the strength of odor tracking. Context-dependent representations of movement and reinforcement cues are thus multiplexed within the mushroom body dopaminergic pathways, enabling them to coordinately influence both ongoing and future behavior.

多巴胺在激励和改变行为方面发挥着核心作用，有助于激发当前的行为表现并通过学习指导未来的行动。在这里，我们研究了这种单一的神经调节剂如何促进如此多种形式的行为调节。通过记录果蝇蘑菇体在主动气味导航过程中的多巴胺能强化通路，我们揭示了它们正在进行的运动相关活动如何与目标导向行为相关。我们发现，根据动物的特定导航策略，多巴胺能神经元与不同的行为变量相关，因此这些神经元的活动优先反映与气味追踪最相关的行为。此外，我们发现这些运动相关性会转化为持续的多巴胺释放，并且剧烈扰乱多巴胺能信号会改变气味追踪的强度。因此，运动和强化线索的上下文相关表示在蘑菇体多巴胺能通路中多重化，使它们能够协调地影响当前和未来的行为。