ArticleNature communications2021
Ventral tegmental area GABA neurons mediate stress-induced blunted reward-seeking in mice.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers.
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Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence of reward processing deficits in repetitive negative thinking: Implications for depression.Psychological medicine · 2026Trial
- The mPFC-reuniens-hippocampus pathway links brain circuitry and neural plasticity in antidepressant response.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Strain-Dependent Network Activity Differences Underlie Social Decision-Making in Male Mice.eNeuro · 2026Article
- Microglia-specific NLRP3 inhibition mitigates hippocampal neuroinflammation and cognitive deficits after hemorrhagic shock with resuscitation.Behavioral and brain functions : BBF · 2026Article
- State-dependent reward circuit modulation gates social buffering of stress.Research square · 2026Article
- Demonstrating the ability of GABAergic cells in the zona incerta to modulate motivation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Stress resilience is associated with transcriptional remodeling in the VTA.Cell reports · 2026Article
- Disrupted synapses: prefrontal cortex-reward circuit dysfunction in stress-induced depression-like behaviors.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2026Review
- Ventral tegmental area GABA neurons integrate positive and negative valence.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Stress resilience is associated with transcriptional remodeling in the VTA.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Counterbalancing O-GlcNAcylation and STAT3 Phosphorylation in Ventral Tegmental Area Dopaminergic Neurons Mediates Behavioral Adaptations to Acute Restraint Stress.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- VTA monosynaptic connections by local glutamate and GABA neurons and their distinct roles in behavior.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Ventral tegmental area GABA neurons integrate positive and negative valence.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Untangling the multifaceted VTA responses to stress.Trends in neurosciences · 2025Review
- A ventral pallidal glutamatergic aversive network encodes abstinence from and reexposure to cocaine.Science advances · 2025Article
- Early Life Stress Impairs VTA Coordination of BLA Network and Behavioral States.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- GABAergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area represent and regulate force vectors.Cell reports · 2025Article
- Early-Life Stress Caused by Maternal Deprivation Impacts Dendritic Morphology of Adult Male Mouse Neocortical Interneurons.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Non-pharmacological therapeutic paradigms in stress-induced depression: from novel therapeutic perspective with focus on cell-based strategies.Acta neuropsychiatrica · 2025Review
- Interactions of sex and stress in modulation of ventral tegmental area dopaminergic activity.Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Decreased pleasure-seeking (anhedonia) forms a core symptom of depression. Stressful experiences precipitate depression and disrupt reward-seeking, but it remains unclear how stress causes anhedonia. We recorded simultaneous neural activity across limbic brain areas as mice underwent stress and discovered a stress-induced 4 Hz oscillation in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) that predicts the degree of subsequent blunted reward-seeking. Surprisingly, while previous studies on blunted reward-seeking focused on dopamine (DA) transmission from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the NAc, we found that VTA GABA, but not DA, neurons mediate stress-induced blunted reward-seeking. Inhibiting VTA GABA neurons disrupts stress-induced NAc oscillations and rescues reward-seeking. By contrast, mimicking this signature of stress by stimulating NAc-projecting VTA GABA neurons at 4 Hz reproduces both oscillations and blunted reward-seeking. Finally, we find that stress disrupts VTA GABA, but not DA, neural encoding of reward anticipation. Thus, stress elicits VTA-NAc GABAergic activity that induces VTA GABA mediated blunted reward-seeking.
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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.