ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2015
A subpopulation of neurochemically-identified ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons is excited by intravenous cocaine.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Disruption of Dopamine Homeostasis by Psychostimulants.Molecular neurobiology · 2026Review
- An endogenous GLP-1 circuit engages VTA GABA neurons to regulate mesolimbic dopamine neurons and attenuate cocaine seeking.Science advances · 2025Article
- Transient nicotine exposure in early adolescent male mice freezes their dopamine circuits in an immature state.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Methamphetamine Dysregulation of the Central Nervous System and Peripheral Immunity.The Journal of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics · 2021Review
- Cocaine-induced increases in motivation require 2-arachidonoylglycerol mobilization and CB1 receptor activation in the ventral tegmental area.Neuropharmacology · 2021Article
- The Critical Role of Peripheral Targets in Triggering Rapid Neural Effects of Intravenous Cocaine.Neuroscience · 2020Review
- The Biomedical Uses of Inositols: A Nutraceutical Approach to Metabolic Dysfunction in Aging and Neurodegenerative Diseases.Biomedicines · 2020Review
- Article
- Varying the rate of intravenous cocaine infusion influences the temporal dynamics of both drug and dopamine concentrations in the striatum.The European journal of neuroscience · 2019Article
- Inhibitory Plasticity of Mesocorticolimbic Circuits in Addiction and Mental Illness.Trends in neurosciences · 2018Review
- Persistent effects of obesity: a neuroplasticity hypothesis.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2018Review
- Response dynamics of midbrain dopamine neurons and serotonin neurons to heroin, nicotine, cocaine, and MDMA.Cell discovery · 2018Article
- Regional influence of cocaine on evoked dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens core: A role for the caudal brainstem.Brain research · 2017Article
- Diversity of Dopaminergic Neural Circuits in Response to Drug Exposure.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2016Review
- Glutamate neurons are intermixed with midbrain dopamine neurons in nonhuman primates and humans.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Specificity and impact of adrenergic projections to the midbrain dopamine system.Brain research · 2016Review
- Multiplexed neurochemical signaling by neurons of the ventral tegmental area.Journal of chemical neuroanatomy · 2016Review
- Cocaine-Induced Endocannabinoid Mobilization in the Ventral Tegmental Area.Cell reports · 2015Article
- Contemporary approaches to neural circuit manipulation and mapping: focus on reward and addiction.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Systemic administration of cocaine is thought to decrease the firing rates of ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA) neurons. However, this view is based on categorizations of recorded neurons as DA neurons using preselected electrophysiological characteristics lacking neurochemical confirmation. Without applying cellular preselection, we recorded the impulse activity of VTA neurons in response to cocaine administration in anesthetized adult rats. The phenotype of recorded neurons was determined by their juxtacellular labeling and immunohistochemical detection of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), a DA marker. We found that intravenous cocaine altered firing rates in the majority of recorded VTA neurons. Within the cocaine-responsive neurons, half of the population was excited and the other half was inhibited. Both populations had similar discharge rates and firing regularities, and most neurons did not exhibit changes in burst firing. Inhibited neurons were more abundant in the posterior VTA, whereas excited neurons were distributed evenly throughout the VTA. Cocaine-excited neurons were more likely to be excited by footshock. Within the subpopulation of TH-positive neurons, 36% were excited by cocaine and 64% were inhibited. Within the subpopulation of TH-negative neurons, 44% were excited and 28% were inhibited. Contrary to the prevailing view that all DA neurons are inhibited by cocaine, we found a subset of confirmed VTA DA neurons that is excited by systemic administration of cocaine. We provide evidence indicating that DA neurons are heterogeneous in their response to cocaine and that VTA non-DA neurons play an active role in processing systemic cocaine.
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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.