Etienne J. P. Maes

Rewarding Value or Prediction Error: Settling the debate over the role of dopamine in reward learning

This study uses computational modeling and optogenetics to show that dopamine neuron stimulation promotes learning, supporting the prediction error hypothesis over the rewarding value hypothesis.

Causal evidence supporting the proposal that dopamine transients function as a temporal difference prediction error

The paper provides causal evidence that dopamine transients from reward-predictive cues function as prediction errors by showing their role in second-order conditioning.

Dopamine transients delivered in learning contexts do not act as model-free prediction errors

This study shows that dopamine transients in learning contexts do not create cached value but instead support valueless associative learning.