Dopamine in the ventral and tail of striatum supports global and local evaluation in reward-threat conflict

Abstract

Survival requires balancing reward seeking and threat avoidance, yet how distinct dopamine systems coordinate to support this remains unclear. Using a naturalistic foraging paradigm in which mice pursue water reward under threat from a monster object, we examined roles of dopamine projections to the ventral striatum (VS) and tail of the striatum (TS). Ablation of VS- projecting dopamine neurons impaired both distal reward pursuit and threat avoidance, with the impairment in threat avoidance paralleling effects of TS dopamine ablation. However, simultaneous recordings revealed different activity rules: VS dopamine tracked radial velocity towards the current goal as animals changed goals (reward or shelter), consistent with a temporal-difference error of spatial value, while TS dopamine encoded proximity and orientation to the threat, reflecting immediate sensory experience. Taken together, VS and TS dopamine evaluates distinct state information for avoidance. VS dopamine facilitates allocentric, goal- directed navigation, while TS dopamine facilitates egocentric, stimulus-driven threat responses.