TY - JOUR TI - Emergence of visually-evoked reward expectation signals in dopamine neurons via the superior colliculus in V1 lesioned monkeys AU - Takakuwa, Norihiro AU - Kato, Rikako AU - Redgrave, Peter AU - Isa, Tadashi A2 - Uchida, Naoshige VL - 6 PY - 2017 DA - 2017/06/19 SP - e24459 C1 - eLife 2017;6:e24459 DO - 10.7554/eLife.24459 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.24459 AB - Responses of midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons reflecting expected reward from sensory cues are critical for reward-based associative learning. However, critical pathways by which reward-related visual information is relayed to DA neurons remain unclear. To address this question, we investigated Pavlovian conditioning in macaque monkeys with unilateral primary visual cortex (V1) lesions (an animal model of ‘blindsight’). Anticipatory licking responses to obtain juice drops were elicited in response to visual conditioned stimuli (CS) in the affected visual field. Subsequent pharmacological inactivation of the superior colliculus (SC) suppressed the anticipatory licking. Concurrent single unit recordings indicated that DA responses reflecting the reward expectation could be recorded in the absence of V1, and that these responses were also suppressed by SC inactivation. These results indicate that the subcortical visual circuit can relay reward-predicting visual information to DA neurons and integrity of the SC is necessary for visually-elicited classically conditioned responses after V1 lesion. KW - associative learning KW - dopamine neuron KW - prediction error KW - subcortical vision KW - blindsight KW - monkey JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -