ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2021
Temporally Specific Roles of Ventral Tegmental Area Projections to the Nucleus Accumbens and Prefrontal Cortex in Attention and Impulse Control.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 93 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Cortico-Striatal-Midbrain Circuit Dysregulation Underlying MK-801 Induced Impulsivity and the Ameliorative Effects of SEP.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Amphetamine in adolescence induces a sex-specific mesolimbic dopamine phenotype in the adult prefrontal cortex.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Blood oxygenation level-dependent responses in neuromodulatory nuclei and their associations with attention and memory across age groups.Neurobiology of aging · 2025Article
- An ace in the hole? Opportunities and limits of using mice to understand schizophrenia neurobiology.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Review
- A haploinsufficiency restoration strategy corrects neurobehavioral deficits in Nf1+/- mice.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2025Article
- Nucleus accumbens volume mediates the association between prenatal adversity and attention problems in youth.Development and psychopathology · 2025Article
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- Clinically probable RBD is an early predictor of malignant non-motor Parkinson's disease phenotypes.NPJ Parkinson's disease · 2025Article
- The CB1 receptor: linking impulsivity and substance use disorder.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Review
- Neuro-functional correlates of personality dimensions in Parkinson's disease.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
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- Methamphetamine self-administration causes neuronal dysfunction in rat medial prefrontal cortex in a sex-specific and withdrawal time-dependent manner.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Tyrosine Hydroxylase-Positive Nucleus Accumbens Neurons Influence Delay Discounting in a Mouse T-Maze Task.eNeuro · 2024Article
- Inhibition of RtTg neurons reverses methamphetamine-induced attention deficits.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2024Article
- Dissociable Roles of the mPFC-to-VTA Pathway in the Control of Impulsive Action and Risk-Related Decision-Making in Roman High- and Low-Avoidance Rats.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Chemogenetic Tools and their Use in Studies of Neuropsychiatric Disorders.Physiological research · 2024Review
- Amylin Modulates a Ventral Tegmental Area-to-Medial Prefrontal Cortex Circuit to Suppress Food Intake and Impulsive Food-Directed Behavior.Biological psychiatry · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Deficits in impulse control and attention are prominent in the symptomatology of mental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), substance addiction, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, yet the underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood. Frontostriatal structures, such as the nucleus accumbens (NAcb), the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and their dopaminergic innervation from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) have been implicated in impulse control and attention. What remains unclear is how the temporal pattern of activity of these VTA projections contributes to these processes. Here, we optogenetically stimulated VTA dopamine (DA) cells, as well as VTA projections to the NAcb core (NAcbC), NAcb shell (NAcbS), and the mPFC in male rats performing the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT). Our data show that stimulation of VTA DA neurons, and VTA projections to the NAcbC and the mPFC immediately before presentation of the stimulus cue, impaired attention but spared impulse control. Importantly, in addition to reducing attention, activation of VTA-NAcbS also increased impulsivity when tested under a longer intertrial interval (ITI), to provoke impulsive behavior. Optogenetic stimulation at the beginning of the ITI only partially replicated these effects. In sum, our data show how attention and impulsivity are modulated by neuronal activity in distinct ascending output pathways from the VTA in a temporally specific manner. These findings increase our understanding of the intricate mechanisms by which mesocorticolimbic circuits contribute to cognition.
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