Adaptive behavior requires performing the right response in the right place at the right time. Stimuli in the environment provide information about when important events (e.g.rewards) are available as well as information about when they are not. These stimuli are informative to the extent that they signal a change in the rate at which events will occur. Information theoretic approaches show that a stimulus will generate anticipatory responding to the extent that it reduces uncertainty about when rewards will occur. Inhibition of anticipation at other times is also regulated by this information. Inhibition and excitation are thus two sides of the same coin and the currency is temporal information. We show that this information modulates behavior in both Pavlovian conditioning and operant discrimination learning. Furthermore, this learning is extremely rapid and dopamine activity tracks this temporal information about reward availability.
