Mediated devaluation of sucrose reward through activity-dependent labeling and chemogenetic activation of ventral tegmental space cells. Credit score: Communications Biology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-024-07440-7
New analysis out of Michigan State College expands on present understanding of the mind chemical dopamine, discovering that it performs a task in lowering the worth of reminiscences related to rewards. The research, revealed within the journal Communications Biology, opens new avenues for understanding dopamine’s function within the mind.
The analysis group found that dopamine is concerned in reshaping reminiscences of previous rewarding occasions—an surprising perform that challenges established theories of dopamine perform.
“We discovered that dopamine plays a role in modifying how a reward-related memory is perceived over time,” mentioned Alexander Johnson, affiliate professor in MSU’s Division of Psychology and lead researcher of the research.
Within the research, mice have been offered with an auditory cue that had beforehand been related to a sweet-tasting meals. This led to the retrieval of the reminiscence related to consuming the meals. Right now, mice have been made to really feel quickly unwell, just like how you’re feeling should you’ve eaten one thing that has upset your abdomen.
When the mice had totally recovered, they displayed conduct as if the sweet-tasting meals had made them unwell. This occurred even supposing when mice have been made to really feel unwell, that they had solely retrieved the reminiscence of the meals, not the meals itself. This preliminary discovering means that devaluing the reminiscence of meals is ample to disrupt future consuming of that meals.
The analysis group subsequent turned their consideration to the mind mechanisms that may very well be controlling this phenomenon. Utilizing an strategy by which they might label and reactivate mind cells that have been engaged when the meals reminiscence was retrieved, the researchers recognized that cells producing the chemical dopamine appeared to play a very necessary function. This was confirmed by actions that manipulated and recorded dopamine neuron exercise through the train.
“Our findings were surprising, based on our prior understanding of dopamine’s function. We typically don’t tend to think of dopamine being involved in the level of detailed informational and memory processing that our study showed,” Johnson defined. “It’s a violation of what we expected, revealing that dopamine’s role is more complex than previously thought.”
The group additionally used computational modeling and have been capable of seize how dopamine alerts would go about taking part in this function in reshaping reward reminiscences.
“Understanding dopamine’s broader functions in the brain could provide new insights into how we approach conditions like addiction, depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders,” mentioned Johnson. “Since dopamine is implicated in so many aspects of brain function, these insights have wide-ranging implications. In the future, we may be able to use these approaches to reduce the value of problematic memories and, as such, diminish their capacity to control unwanted behaviors.”
Extra data:
Benjamin R. Fry et al, Devaluing reminiscences of reward: a case for dopamine, Communications Biology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-024-07440-7
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Michigan State College
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Dopamine performs an surprising function in reminiscence devaluation, analysis reveals (2025, March 12)
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