Millisecond Acetylcholine Timing Splits Dopamine’s Roles in Learning and Movement

Overview

• The peer-reviewed study from NYU, published Wednesday in Nature Neuroscience, identifies acetylcholine timing as the switch for dopamine’s two jobs.
• Dopamine following a brief dip in acetylcholine tracked future choices and learning.
• Dopamine coinciding with bursts of acetylcholine predicted how forcefully the rats moved.
• The difference hinged on tens of milliseconds, measured with optical sensors in the dorsomedial striatum during a reward task that required movement.
• The authors say this timing mechanism could guide research on Parkinson’s, schizophrenia, and depression, though the evidence so far comes from rats.