p523fig14.03 (a) The MOTIVATOR neural model generalizes CogEM by also including the basal ganglia.  It can hereby explain and simulate complementary functions of the amygdala and basal ganglia (SNc) during conditioning and learned performance.  The basal ganglia generate Now Print signals in response to <I>unexpected</i> rewards.  These signals modulate learning of new associations in many brain regions.  The amygdala supports motivated attention to trigger actions that are <I>expected</i> to occur in response to conditioned or unconditioned stimuli.  Object Categories represent visual or gustatory inputs in anterior inferotemporal (ITA) and rhinal (RHIN) cortices, respectively.  Value Categories represent the  value of anticipated outcomes on the basis of hunger and satiety inputs, in amygdala (AMYG) and lateral hypothalamus (LH).  Object-Value Categories resolve the value of competing perceptual stimuli in medial (MORB) and lateral (ORB) orbitofrontal cortex.  The Reward Expectation Filter detects the omission or delivery of rewards using a circuit that spans ventral striatum (VS), ventral pallidum (VP), striosomal delay (SD) cells in the ventral striatum, the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPTN) and midbrain dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra pars compacta/ventral tegmental area (SNc/VTA).  The circuit that processes CS-related visual information (ITA, AMTG, ORB) operates in parallel with a circuit that processes US-related visual and gustatory information (RHIN, AMYG, MORB).  (b) Reciprocal adaptive connections between hypothalamus and amygdala enable amygdala cells to become learned value categories.  The bottom region represents hypothalmic cells, which receive converging taste and metabolite inputs whereby they become taste-drive cells.  Bottom-up signals from activity patterns across these cells activate competing value category, or US Value Representations, in the amygdala.  A winning value category learns to respond selectively to specific combinations of taste-drive activity patterns and sends adaptive top-down priming signals back to the taste-drive cells that activated it.  CS-activated conditioned reinforcer signals are also associatively linked to value categories.  Adpative connections end in (approximately) hemidiscs.  See the text for details.<BR>||