Accumulating evidence suggests that dopamine (DA) neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) contribute to the complex amygdala-based neurocircuitry that mediates fear-motivated behaviors. Because of acetylcholine's (ACh) role in DA neuronal activation, the involvement of VTA cholinergic muscarinic receptors in Pavlovian conditioned fear responding was evaluated in the present study. Fear-pote...

Rats with electrolytic lesions of the ventral tegmental area (VTA, n = 32), or sham lesions (n = 32), were tested in four behavioral paradigms in a shuttlebox. The paradigms were designed to assess the motivational influence of CS-US contiguity and response-reinforcer contingency. The VTA lesion increased the number of shuttle responses in the paradigms involving contiguity between a warning si...

Opioids increase dopamine release in the brain through inhibition of GABA-A IPSCs onto dopamine cells. Immunolabeling indicates that GABA neurons in the rostromedial tegmental nucleus (RMTg), also known as the tail of the ventral tegmental area, send a dense projection to midbrain dopamine neurons stain for μ-opioid receptors. There is however, little functional evidence that these neurons play...

Pharmacologic treatment with the neuropeptide neurotensin (Nts) modifies motivated behaviors such as feeding, locomotor activity, and reproduction. Dopamine (DA) neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) control these behaviors, and Nts directly modulates the activity of DA neurons via Nts receptor-1. While Nts sources to the VTA have been described in starlings and rats, the endogenous sourc...

Repeated administration of morphine sensitizes animals to the stimulant and rewarding properties of the drug. It may also alter the expression and function of GABA receptors within the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a midbrain region that is implicated in morphine action. In the present study, the effect of activation of GABAB receptor subtypes within the VTA on morphine-induced incentive sensit...

Repeated administration of morphine sensitizes animals to the stimulant and rewarding properties of the drug. It may also alter the expression and function of GABA receptors within the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a midbrain region that is implicated in morphine action. In the present study, the effect of activation of GABAB receptor subtypes within the VTA on morphine-induced incentive sensit...

Key points NMDA receptors (NMDARs) expressed by dopamine neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) play a central role in glutamate synapse plasticity, neuronal firing and adaptative behaviours. The NMDAR surface dynamics shapes synaptic adaptation hippocampal networks, as well associative memory. We investigated basic properties on cultured mesencephalic VTA rodents. Using combination single...

The population of mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons is believed to be a primary site at which opiates produce their rewarding effects. Using an unbiased, counterbalanced place conditioning paradigm, we reexamined the contribution made by these cells to the rewarding properties of morphine. Rats were conditioned such that distinct environments were paired with an intra-ventral tegmental area (VTA)...

Our previous study indicated that unilateral lesion of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) facilitates contralateral VTA stimulation-induced feeding or exploration. The present study was aimed to determine the possible role of the central cholinergic systems in this effect. Immunohistochemistry for choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) was used to measure the number of active cholinergic neurons in the...

An assortment of human behaviors is thought to be driven by rewards including reinforcement learning, novelty processing, learning, decision making, economic choice, incentive motivation, and addiction. In each case the ventral tegmental area/ventral striatum (nucleus accumbens) (VTA-VS) system has been implicated as a key structure by functional imaging studies, mostly on the basis of standard...