Research
Sub-second dopamine reinforcement shapes juvenile social play
Cell · By Xinfeng Chen, Xianming Tao, Zhenchao Zhong, Fanyu Zhu, Yuanqing Zhang, Yangzhen Wang, Miao Wang, Yixuan Li, Le Sun, Ye Ouyang, Zhaoyi Ding, Min An, Yiyi Zhao, Jingfeng Zhou, Rong Zhang, Wei Xiong, Ni Ji & Ying Li ·
The Brief
- A Cell study reports that dopamine reinforces specific actions within juvenile social play on a sub-second timescale.
- In a Shank3-deficient autism model, disrupted dopamine reinforcement is linked to social deficits.
- Correcting the reinforcement signal in real time restored normal play, according to the source.
Why it matters
The work links moment-to-moment dopamine signalling to a concrete social behaviour and to an autism-model deficit, offering a mechanistic target for future research on social function.
Who’s affected
- neuroscientists studying reward and social behaviour
- researchers working on autism models
- #dopamine
- #social play
- #autism
- #shank3
- #reinforcement learning
Dopamine acts moment by moment to reinforce the specific actions that make up juvenile social play. Disrupted reinforcement underlies social deficits in a Shank3-deficient autism model, and correcting it in real time restores normal play.
Timeline
Study published in Cell
cell.com
Sub-second dopamine reinforcement shapes juvenile social play