{"doi":"10.3389/fncel.2025.1538500","title":"The learning primacy hypothesis of dopamine: reconsidering dopamine’s dual functions","abstract":"The dopaminergic modulation of striatal circuit function remains intensely studied and debated. Nevertheless, a prevalent view is that striatal dopamine serves important roles in both reinforcement learning and the performance of movements, two highly distinct processes. But this dichotomy has led to a longstanding problem of how to interpret the functional consequences of a particular dopaminergic signal-is it to learn or to move? In order to explore this ambiguity and approach a possible resolution, this review examines the key evidence for dopamine's role in learning and movement. As part of that discussion, we consider a recent body of evidence that views the common dichotomous perspective through a more nuanced lens, by suggesting a comparatively limited dopaminergic contribution to movement. This concept, which we refer to as the learning primacy hypothesis, offers a unified conceptual framework for understanding dopaminergic function.","journal":"Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience","year":2025,"id":519391,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9496,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":300852,"name":"Sotiris C. Masmanidis","orcid":"0000-0002-8699-3335","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":993353,"name":"Charltien Long","orcid":"0000-0001-5042-4125","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":87,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:49:18.751199Z","pmid":"40302787","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}