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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 May 12.
Published in final edited form as: Neuroscientist. 2012 Apr 9;18(4):342–359. doi: 10.1177/1073858411435128

Figure 1. Pavlovian action-selection.

Figure 1

(A) Anatomy of the Pavlovian action-selection system in rat (left) and human (right). (B) We can write Pavlovian action-selection as an association between stimulus (S) and outcome (O) that releases an action (a) associated with that outcome. (C) Seen from the point of view of temporal-difference reinforcement learning (TDRL), situations (indicated by circles in the top panel and corresponding colored locations in the bottom panel) are associated with inherent valuations. Animals approach stimuli with inherent value. (D) This becomes a problem in sign tracking where animals approach and interact with cueing stimuli rather than using those cueing stimuli to predict the location of goal tracking. Histological slices from www.thehumanbrain.info and brainmaps.org, used with permission. Abbreviations: PFC, prefrontal cortex; OFC, orbitofrontal cortex; MC, motor cortex; dmStr, dorsomedial striatum; dlStr, dorsolateral striatum; vStr, ventral striatum; HC, hippocampus; AMG, amygdala; PAG, periaquaductal gray; VTA, ventral tegmental area; SNc, substantia nigra pars compacta.