ArticleNeuroscience2015
A subset of ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons responds to acute ethanol.
Article in Neuroscience, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- Activation by Alcohol of Prefrontal Layer 5 Pyramidal Neurons Depends on Ascending Dopaminergic Input.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- The role of lymphocytic CD5 in the effects of ethanol on mesolimbic circuitry and ethanol consumption behavior.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2026Article
- Alcohol effects on associative and sensorimotor cortico-thalamo-basal ganglia circuits alter decision making and alcohol intake.Alcohol (Fayetteville, N.Y.) · 2025Review
- Acute alcohol in prefrontal cortex is characterized by enhanced inhibition that transitions to excitation.iScience · 2025Article
- The influence of drug class on reward in substance use disorders.Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · 2024Review
- Chemogenetic inhibition of locus coeruleus to rostromedial tegmental nucleus noradrenergic pathway increases light cycle ethanol drinking in male and female mice and blunts ethanol-induced CTA.Neuropharmacology · 2024Article
- Ethanol blocks a novel form of iLTD, but not iLTP of inhibitory inputs to VTA GABA neurons.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Article
- The peripheral dopamine 2 receptor antagonist domperidone attenuates ethanol enhancement of dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2022Article
- Moderate ethanol drinking is sufficient to alter Ventral Tegmental Area dopamine neurons activity via functional and structural remodeling of GABAergic transmission.Neuropharmacology · 2022Article
- Reciprocal midbrain-extended amygdala circuit activity in preclinical models of alcohol use and misuse.Neuropharmacology · 2022Review
- Alcohol dependence activates ventral tegmental area projections to central amygdala in male mice and rats.Addiction biology · 2021Article
- KCNK13 potassium channels in the ventral tegmental area of rats are important for excitation of ventral tegmental area neurons by ethanol.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2021Article
- Alcohol reduces the activity of somatostatin interneurons in the mouse prefrontal cortex: A neural basis for its disinhibitory effect?Neuropharmacology · 2021Article
- Sex differences in vulnerability to addiction.Neuropharmacology · 2021Review
- Dopamine D2 autoreceptor interactome: Targeting the receptor complex as a strategy for treatment of substance use disorder.Pharmacology & therapeutics · 2020Review
- Investigating the influence of perinatal nicotine exposure on genetic profiles of neurons in the sub-regions of the VTA.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Selective Knockout of theFrontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2020Article
- Nicotine and alcohol: the role of midbrain dopaminergic neurons in drug reinforcement.The European journal of neuroscience · 2019Review
- Ethanol acts on KCNK13 potassium channels in the ventral tegmental area to increase firing rate and modulate binge-like drinking.Neuropharmacology · 2019Article
- Glutamate Transmission to Ventral Tegmental Area GABA Neurons Is Altered by Acute and Chronic Ethanol.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The mechanisms by which alcohol drinking promotes addiction in humans and self-administration in rodents remain obscure, but it is well known that alcohol can enhance dopamine (DA) neurotransmission from neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and increase DA levels within the nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex. We recorded from identified DA neuronal cell bodies within ventral midbrain slices prepared from a transgenic mouse line (TH-GFP) using long-term stable extracellular recordings in a variety of locations and carefully mapped the responses to applied ethanol (EtOH). We identified a subset of DA neurons in the medial VTA located within the rostral linear and interfascicular nuclei that fired spontaneously and exhibited a concentration-dependent increase of firing frequency in response to EtOH, with some neurons responsive to as little as 20mM EtOH. Many of these medial VTA DA neurons were also insensitive to the D2 receptor agonist quinpirole. In contrast, DA neurons in the lateral VTA (located within the parabrachial pigmented and paranigral nuclei) were either unresponsive or responded only to 100mM EtOH. Typically, these lateral VTA DA cells had very slow firing rates, and all exhibited inhibition by quinpirole via D2 "autoreceptors". VTA non-DA cells did not show any significant response to low levels of EtOH. These findings are consistent with evidence for heterogeneity among midbrain DA neurons and provide an anatomical and pharmacological distinction between DA neuron sub-populations that will facilitate future mechanistic studies on the actions of EtOH in 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.