ArticleNeuron2020
VTA Glutamate Neuron Activity Drives Positive Reinforcement Absent Dopamine Co-release.
Article in Neuron, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers.
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Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed, 135 citations in OpenAlex.
- A pontomesencephalic-mesolimbic circuit modulates activity-based anorexia.Science advances · 2026Article
- Mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways differentially support fentanyl-context associations.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Multimodal characterization of transcriptionally defined ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Paradoxical Ventral Tegmental Area GABA Signaling Drives Enhanced Morphine Reward After Adolescent Nicotine.Biological psychiatry · 2026Article
- VTA-forebrain connectivity moderates adaptive behavior.Brain structure & function · 2026Review
- 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
- Circuit-specific remodeling of synaptic co-transmission in stress-responsive networks.Animal cells and systems · 2026Review
- Projection-defined ventral tegmental area neurons exhibit fentanyl-induced molecular and functional adaptations that differentially support drug-context associations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- GABA-glutamate corelease is a mechanism for state-dependent neurotransmission.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Morphine regulates astrocyte transcriptional dynamics in the ventral tegmental area by stimulation of glucocorticoid signaling.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Untangling the multifaceted VTA responses to stress.Trends in neurosciences · 2025Review
- Salience Signaling and Stimulus Scaling of Ventral Tegmental Area Glutamate Neuron Subtypes.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Modulation of Dopamine Neurons Alters Behavior and Event Encoding in the Nucleus Accumbens during Pavlovian Conditioning.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Ventral tegmental area interneurons revisited: GABA and glutamate projection neurons make local synapses.eLife · 2025Article
- Investigating the effect of Arvcf reveals an essential role on regulating the mesolimbic dopamine signaling-mediated nicotine reward.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Acute and chronic gene expression activation following medial forebrain bundle DBS and selective dopamine pathway stimulation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- How Dopamine Enables Learning from Aversion.Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2025Article
- Ventral tegmental area interneurons revisited: GABA and glutamate projection neurons make local synapses.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Glutamatergic Input From Arcuate Nucleus Kiss1 Neurons to Preoptic Kiss1 Neurons Is Required for LH Surge in Female Mice.Endocrinology · 2025Article
- Single-Cell Profiling Identifies Reward Behavior-Related Neurons and Alterations in the Ventral Tegmental Area Based onResearch (Washington, D.C.) · 2025Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Like ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA) neurons, VTA glutamate neuron activity can support positive reinforcement. However, a subset of VTA neurons co-release DA and glutamate, and DA release might be responsible for behavioral reinforcement induced by VTA glutamate neuron activity. To test this, we used optogenetics to stimulate VTA glutamate neurons in which tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), and thus DA biosynthesis, was conditionally ablated using either floxed Th mice or viral-based CRISPR/Cas9. Both approaches led to loss of TH expression in VTA glutamate neurons and loss of DA release from their distal terminals in nucleus accumbens (NAc). Despite loss of the DA signal, optogenetic activation of VTA glutamate cell bodies or axon terminals in NAc was sufficient to support reinforcement. These results suggest that glutamate release from VTA is sufficient to promote reinforcement independent of concomitant DA co-release, establishing a non-DA mechanism by which VTA activity can support reward-seeking behaviors.
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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.