Correlates of motivation and reward

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We made extracellular recordings from 62 neurons in the nucleus accumbens of rats trained to associate two distinct auditory cues with either reward or non-reward. A subset of recorded neurons showed firing that correlated with sensorimotor elements of the rewarded trials (during cue presentation and/or motor responding). An overlapping subset of recorded neurons showed firing correlations with local field potential theta rhythms in the 5-8 Hz range. Notably, the proportion of neurons correlating simultaneously with task elements and with theta rhythmicity was higher than expected by chance (Chi-square, p < 0.02), indicating convergence of these two types of information onto individual accumbens neurons. Further study is ongoing to examine subregional differences in these correlations, and to determine whether convergence occurs in the nucleus accumbens itself, or in structures upstream from it.