ArticleJournal of translational medicine2023
Investigations of brain-wide functional and structural networks of dopaminergic and CamKIIα-positive neurons in VTA with DREADD-fMRI and neurotropic virus tracing technologies.
Article in Journal of translational medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- A Non-spinal Neural Circuit for Transmitting Information of Bladder Conditions.Neuroscience bulletin · 2026Article
- Windows to Consciousness: The Role of Fronto-Parietal Connectivity in Anesthesia-Induced Unconsciousness.Current neuropharmacology · 2026Review
- Elucidating hemodynamics and neuro-glio-vascular signaling using rodent fMRI.Trends in neurosciences · 2025Review
- Investigating the relationships of structural and functional neural networks of primary visual cortex with engineered AAVs and chemogenetic-fMRI techniques.Theranostics · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 8 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe ventral tegmental area (VTA) contains heterogeneous cell populations. The dopaminergic neurons in VTA play a central role in reward and cognition, while CamKIIα-positive neurons, composed mainly of glutamatergic and some dopaminergic neurons, participate in the reward learning and locomotor activity behaviors. The differences in brain-wide functional and structural networks between these two neuronal subtypes were comparatively elucidated.
methodsIn this study, we applied a method combining Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADD) and fMRI to assess the cell type-specific modulation of whole-brain neural networks. rAAV encoding the cre-dependent hM3D was injected into the right VTA of DAT-cre or CamKIIα-cre transgenic rats. The global brain activities elicited by DREADD stimulation were then detected using BOLD-fMRI. Furthermore, the cre-dependent antegrade transsynaptic viral tracer H129ΔTK-TT was applied to label the outputs of VTA neurons.
resultsWe found that DREADD stimulation of dopaminergic neurons induced significant BOLD signal changes in the VTA and several VTA-related regions including mPFC, Cg and Septum. More regions responded to selective activation of VTA CamKIIα-positive neurons, resulting in increased BOLD signals in VTA, Insula, mPFC, MC_R (Right), Cg, Septum, Hipp, TH_R, PtA_R, and ViC_R. Along with DREADD-BOLD analysis, further neuronal tracing identified multiple cortical (MC, mPFC) and subcortical (Hipp, TH) brain regions that are structurally and functionally connected by VTA dopaminergic and CamKIIα-positive neurons.
conclusionsOur study dissects brain-wide structural and functional networks of two neuronal subtypes in VTA and advances our understanding of VTA functions.
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