"Unraveling the Role of Dynamic Behaviour Restructuring in Dopamine-Dependent Credit Assignment"

Researchers have discovered that dopamine release plays a crucial role in reinforcing reward-producing actions. Using a self-stimulation paradigm, they found that dopamine self-stimulation dynamically reshapes the entire behavioral repertoire. Initial stimulations not only reinforced the target action but also similar actions and those occurring shortly before stimulation. Through repeated pairings, the behavioral repertoire gradually refined to focus on the target action. The study also revealed temporal dependencies in the refinement of action sequences. This retrospective reinforcement mechanism allows for the assignment of credit to specific actions and action sequences that lead to dopamine release.