Dopamine and calcium dynamics in the nucleus accumbens core during food seeking

Abstract

Extinction-reinstatement paradigms have been used to study reward seeking for both food and drug rewards. The nucleus accumbens is of particular interest in reinstatement due to its ability to energize motivated behavior. Indeed, previous work has demonstrated that suppression of neuronal activity or dopaminergic signaling in the nucleus accumbens reduces reinstatement to food seeking. In this study, we sought to further establish a connection between glutamatergic input, measured by proxy via a genetically encoded calcium indicator, and dopamine (DA) tone, measured simultaneously with a red-shifted DA biosensor. We performed this sensor multiplexing in the nucleus accumbens core in the classic extinction-reinstatement paradigm with food reward. We detected DA transients that changed in magnitude and/or temporally shifted over the course of self-administration training. In our calcium traces we observed a decrease from baseline time-locked to the lever press for food reward, which became more prominent with training. Both patterns were reduced in the first session of extinction with no deflections from baseline detected in either the DA or calcium traces in the last extinction session. When we recorded during reinstatement tests, bootstrapping analysis detected a calcium response when reinstatement was primed by cue or pellet+cue presentation, while a DA response was detected for pellet+cue reinstatement. These data further establish a role for nucleus accumbens core activity and DA in reinstatement of food seeking and represent the first attempt to simultaneously record the two during an extinction-reinstatement task.