Prediction error correlates in the striosome-dopamine circuit emerge from information gain
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The striosome compartments of striatum gate cortical signals to dopamine cells, which in turn project back to striosomes and the surrounding matrix 1 . This loop is essential for decision-making, learning, and movement 2,3 . This circuit’s dopamine has long been thought to signal reward prediction errors (RPEs) e.g. 4,5 . But RPEs struggle to account for dopaminergic responses to large costs, novelty, or moment-to-moment effect on movement and decisions 6–10 . Here we demonstrate that this circuit’s dopamine signal instead computes policy information gain (policy-IG), a single information-theory measure of the benefit of new information for refining present and future action strategies. For example, how much does a weather report increase probability of packing an umbrella? We show that policy-IG reduces to classic RPEs in simple reward tasks. However, policy-IG also predicts dopaminergic responses to aversive stimuli 7,8 , nonlinear relationship with reward level e.g. 11 , response to novel stimuli 7 , role in learning causal associations 12 , correlation with state value 13 , and moment-to-moment guidance of movement 13 and decisions 14–16 . Further, impairing policy-IG in our model reproduces key features of disorders affecting the basal ganglia and sheds light on the development of neuropsychiatric disorders. These results identify policy-IG as a promising target for therapies that restore balanced decision-making and for artificial intelligence algorithms modeled on this circuit.
Source: Nature Communications
Authors: Dirk W. Beck, Alexander Friedman
Institution: The University of Texas at El Paso
Language: English
Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $6,990
OpenAlex ID: W7166295042