Reward is important for shaping goal-directed behaviour(1-4). After stimulu
s-reward associative learning, an organism can assess the motivational valu
e of the incoming stimuli on the basis of past experience (retrospective pr
ocessing), and predict forthcoming rewarding events (prospective processing
)(1-5). The traditional role of the sensory thalamus is to relay current se
nsory information to cortex. Here we rnd that non-primary thalamic neurons
respond to reward-related events in two ways. The early, phasic responses o
ccurred shortly after the onset of the stimuli and depended on the sensory
modality. Their magnitudes resisted extinction and correlated with the lear
ning experience. The late responses gradually increased during the cue and
delay periods, and peaked just before delivery of the reward. These respons
es were independent of sensory modality and were modulated by the value and
timing of the reward. These observations provide new evidence that single
thalamic neurons can code for the acquired significance of sensory stimuli
in the early responses (retrospective coding) and predict upcoming reward v
alue in the late responses (prospective coding).