ArticleNeurobiology of stress2021
Reactivating a positive feedback loop VTA-BLA-NAc circuit associated with positive experience ameliorates the attenuated reward sensitivity induced by chronic stress.
Article in Neurobiology of stress, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Whole-Brain Monosynaptic Inputs to and Axonal Projections From Posterior Insular Cortex GABAergic Neurons in Mice.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2026Article
- Histone Arginine Methylation Regulates Neuropeptide Y Expression in the Basolateral Amygdala to Promote Reward-Seeking Behaviour.Cellular and molecular neurobiology · 2025Article
- Blockade of Dopamine D3 Receptors in the Ventral Tegmental Area Mitigates Fear Memory Generalization.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Cross-species dissection of the modular role of the ventral tegmental area in depressive disorders.Neuroscience · 2025Review
- 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
- Corticotropin-releasing factor and GABA in the ventral tegmental area modulate partner preference formation in male and female prairie voles (Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Proteomic Analysis of the Amygdala Reveals Dynamic Changes in Glutamate Transporter-1 During Progression of Complete Freund's Adjuvant-Induced Pain Aversion.Molecular neurobiology · 2023Article
- Social memory deficit caused by dysregulation of the cerebellar vermis.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Commentary: Midbrain projection to the basolateral amygdala encodes anxiety-like but not depression-like behaviors.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2023Article
- Rewarded Extinction Increases Amygdalar Connectivity and Stabilizes Long-Term Memory Traces in the vmPFC.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2022Article
- Hearing, touching, and multisensory integration during mate choice.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2022Review
- Characterizing and TRAPing a Social Stress-Activated Neuronal Ensemble in the Ventral Tegmental Area.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Both genetic predisposition and life events, particularly life stress, are thought to increase the risk for depression. Reward sensitivity appears to be attenuated in major depressive disorder (MDD), suggesting deficits in reward processing in these patients. We identified the VTA-BLA-NAc circuit as being activated by sex reward, and the VTA neurons that respond to sex reward are mostly dopaminergic. Acute or chronic reactivation of this circuit ameliorates the reward insensitivity induced by chronic restraint stress. Our histological and electrophysiological results show that the VTA neuron subpopulation responding to restraint stress, predominantly GABAergic neurons, inhibits the responsiveness of VTA dopaminergic neurons to reward stimuli, which is probably the mechanism by which stress modulates the reward processing neural circuits and subsequently disrupts reward-related behaviours. Furthermore, we found that the VTA-BLA-NAc circuit is a positive feedback loop. Blocking the projections from the BLA to the NAc associated with sex reward increases the excitability of VTA GABAergic neurons and decreases the excitability of VTA dopaminergic neurons, while activating this pathway decreases the excitability of VTA GABAergic neurons and increases the excitability of VTA dopaminergic neurons, which may be the cellular mechanism by which the VTA-BLA-NAc circuit associated with sex reward ameliorates the attenuated reward sensitivity induced by chronic stress.
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