Fig. 4: The MAGNET model predicts that DA manipulations exert context-dependent, joint effects on movement direction and ballistics.

a Schematics of conditions used to derive model predictions: following reinforcement, i.e. reward delivery at a central location (left), dopamine is released (vertical blue bar) when the e-mouse is at the periphery of its environment (middle). MAGNet predicts an increased cumulative probability of visiting the reward location only if DA affects both plasticity and excitability, but not if DA solely affects plasticity or excitability (right). b The MAGNet model predicts that the increased pace of visiting the reward location is due to joint effects on movement ballistics, i.e. an increase of speed to reward (left), a decrease of distance to reward (middle) and a reorientation of the angle to the reward (right). c The MAGNet model further predicts that the above motivational effects following DA manipulation are specific to the environment in which the central location was rewarded (R. context), and that none of the DA effects on movement ballistics (b) are observed in other contexts (no-R. context).