Dopaminergic signatures of state and trait-like pessimism in mice

Authors

Biswas, S., Shabel, S.

Abstract

The midbrain dopaminergic system is critical for learning reward expectations, but how it contributes to pessimistic bias in reward expectation remains unclear. Using a Pavlovian ambiguous-cue task while recording mesolimbic dopaminergic activity, we find that trial-to-trial, "state" pessimism is associated with decreased dopaminergic activity during ambiguous cues, followed by a self-correcting positive shift in the balance of responses to reward and reward omission. Mice with pessimistically skewed cue interpretation, or "trait-like" pessimism, also had decreased activity during ambiguous cues. However, opposite of state pessimism, trait-like pessimism was associated with a negative shift in outcome signaling driven by larger reward-omission responses. These data indicate that state and trait-like pessimism arise from distinct neural mechanisms and support a model in which trait-like pessimism is maintained by asymmetrically weighted dopaminergic outcome signals.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 06 Aug 2026.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this preprint? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.