ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2010
Glutamatergic and nonglutamatergic neurons of the ventral tegmental area establish local synaptic contacts with dopaminergic and nondopaminergic neurons.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 139 papers.
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Who cites it
139 citing papers in PubMed, 263 citations in OpenAlex.
- The gut-brain vagal axis governs mesolimbic dopamine dynamics and reward events.Science advances · 2026Article
- Mu-opioid and nociceptin receptors show divergent, cell-type-specific actions in the mesocorticolimbic reward system in opioid use disorder.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2026Review
- From Synaptic Plasticity to Neurotoxicity: Endocannabinoid Influence on Addiction and Neurodegeneration.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- VTA monosynaptic connections by local glutamate and GABA neurons and their distinct roles in behavior.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Dopamine dynamics underlying maternal motivation and reward.Neuroscience research · 2025Review
- Flexible updating of reward and punishment contingencies by VTA GABA neurons.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Ventral tegmental area interneurons revisited: GABA and glutamate projection neurons make local synapses.eLife · 2025Article
- Schizophrenia-associated changes in neuronal subpopulations in the human midbrain.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Ventral tegmental area interneurons revisited: GABA and glutamate projection neurons make local synapses.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Opto-seq reveals input-specific immediate-early gene induction in ventral tegmental area cell types.Neuron · 2024Article
- Regulation of the Mouse Ventral Tegmental Area by Melanin-Concentrating Hormone.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Article
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- The contributions of neonatal inhalation of copper to air pollution-induced neurodevelopmental outcomes in mice.Neurotoxicology · 2024Article
- The effect of reward on motor learning: different stage, different effect.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Review
- Ventral tegmental area glutamate neurons establish a mu-opioid receptor gated circuit to mesolimbic dopamine neurons and regulate opioid-seeking behavior.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Article
- Negative Emotions Recruit the Parabrachial Nucleus Efferent to the VTA to Disengage Instrumental Food Seeking.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
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- Chronic inflammatory pain promotes place preference for fentanyl in male rats but does not change fentanyl self-administration in male and female rats.Neuropharmacology · 2023Article
- Effects of social isolation on 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations, affective state, cognition, and neurotransmitter concentrations in the ventral tegmental and locus coeruleus of adult rats.Behavioural brain research · 2023Article
79 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The ventral tegmental area (VTA) contributes to reward and motivation signaling. In addition to the well established populations of dopamine (DA) or GABA VTA neurons, glutamatergic neurons were recently discovered in the VTA. These glutamatergic neurons express the vesicular glutamate transporter 2, VGluT2. To investigate whether VTA glutamatergic neurons establish local synapses, we tagged axon terminals from resident VTA neurons by intra-VTA injection of Phaseolus vulgaris leucoagglutinin (PHA-L) or an adeno-associated virus encoding wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) and by immunoelectron microscopy determined the presence of VGluT2 in PHA-L- or WGA-positive terminals. We found that PHA-L- or WGA-positive terminals from tagged VTA cells made asymmetric or symmetric synapses within the VTA. VGluT2 immunoreactivity was detected in the vast majority of PHA-L- or WGA-positive terminals forming asymmetric synapses. These results indicate that both VTA glutamatergic and nonglutamatergic (likely GABAergic) neurons establish local synapses. To examine the possible DAergic nature of postsynaptic targets of VTA glutamatergic neurons, we did triple immunolabeling with antibodies against VGluT2, tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), and PHA-L. From triple-labeled tissue, we found that double-labeled PHA-L (+)/VGluT2 (+) axon terminals formed synaptic contacts on dendrites of both TH-positive and TH-negative cells. Consistent with these anatomical observations, in whole-cell slice recordings of VTA neurons we observed that blocking action potential activity significantly decreased the frequency of synaptic glutamatergic events in DAergic and non-DAergic neurons. These observations indicate that resident VTA glutamatergic neurons are likely to affect both DAergic and non-DAergic neurotransmission arising from the VTA.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.