CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 1,293Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on BehaviorNeuroscience and Neuropharmacology ResearchNeurological disorders and treatments

Efferent connections of the substantia nigra and ventral tegmental area in the rat

Beckstead, Robert M., Domesick, Valerie B., Nauta, Walle J.H.·1979·Brain Research
DOI 10.1016/0006-8993(79)91001-1
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Small injections of tritiated leucine and proline confined to the ventral tegmental area (AVT) were found to label fibers ascending: (a) to the entire ventromedial half of the striatum, but most massively to the ventral striatal zone that includes the nucleus accumbens; (b) to the thalamus: lateral habenular nucleus, nuclei reuniens and centralis medius, and the most medial zone of the mediodorsal nucleus; (c) to the posterior hypothalamic nucleus and possibly the lateral hypothalamic and preoptic region; (d) to the nuclei amygdalae centralis, lateralis and medialis; (e) to the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, the nucleus of the diagonal band, and the medial half of the lateral septal nucleus; (f) to the anteromedial (frontocingulate) cortex; and (g) to the entorhinal area. Further AVT efferents descend to the medial half of the midbrain tegmentum including an anterior region of the median raphe nucleus, to the ventral half of the central grey substance including the dorsal raphe nucleus, to the parabrachial nuclei, and to the locus coeruleus. Similar injections centered in the pars compacta of the substantia nigra (SNC) label fibers that are distributed in the striatum in an orderly medial-to-lateral arrangement, and almost entirely avoid the nucleus accumbens and olfactory tubercle. With the exception of the lateral quarter of the substantia nigra, which apparently does not project to the extreme rostral pole of the striatum, each small SNC locus, regardless of its anteroposterior localization, distributes nigrostriatal fibers throughout the length of the striatum. Descending SNC efferents are distributed to the same general regions that receive descending AVT projections, except that no SNC fibers appear to enter the locus coeruleus. Isotope injections confined to the pars reticulata (SNR) label sparse nigrostriatal fibers, and numerous nigrothalamic fibers ascending mainly to the nucleus ventromedialis and in lesser number to the parafascicular nucleus and the paralamellar zone of the nucleus mediodorsalis. Descending SNR fibers leave the nigra as a voluminous fiber bundle that bifurcates into a large nigrotectal and a smaller nigrotegmental component, the latter terminating largely in the pedunculopontine nucleus of the pontomesencephalic tegmentum.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/0006-8993(79)91001-1

Cites

66 of 66 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The present observations are consistent with the finding that leucine and proline application confined within the anterolateral VTA anterogradely labeled axon terminals predominantly in the accumbens core, lateral accumbens shell, and lateral olfactory tubercle (Beckstead et al., 1979).

    “These observations are consistent with the finding that leucine and proline application confined within the anterolateral VTA anterogradely labeled axon terminals predominantly in the accumbens core, lateral accumbens shell and lateral olfactory tubercle (Beckstead et al., 1979).”

    From Dopamine reward circuitry: Two projection systems from the ventral midbrain to the nucleus accumbens–olfactory tubercle complex (2007) · cites this paper as Beckstead et al., 1979

  • Midbrain projections to the ventral striatum are primarily unilateral.

    “previous studies indicated that midbrain projections to the ventral striatum are primarily unilateral (Fallon and Moore, 1978; Nauta et al., 1978; Beckstead et al., 1979; Phillipson and Griffiths, 1985; Brog et al., 1993).”

    From Dopamine reward circuitry: Two projection systems from the ventral midbrain to the nucleus accumbens–olfactory tubercle complex (2007) · cites this paper as Beckstead et al., 1979

  • The present data are in general agreement with previous rat data suggesting that VTA cells project to the accumbens or to the tubercle with mediolateral topography.

    “Overall, these data are in general agreement with previous data from rats, suggesting that the cells in the VTA project to the accumbens (Fallon and Moore, 1978; Nauta et al., 1978; Beckstead et al., 1979; Phillipson and Griffiths, 1985; Brog et al., 1993; Hasue and Shammah-Lagnado, 2002) or to the tubercle (Newman and Winans, 1980) with mediolateral topography.”

    From Dopamine reward circuitry: Two projection systems from the ventral midbrain to the nucleus accumbens–olfactory tubercle complex (2007) · cites this paper as Beckstead et al., 1979

  • Midbrain dopamine neurons consist of three largely contiguous cell groups: the retrorubral field (A8), the substantia nigra pars compacta (A9), and the ventral tegmental area (A10).

    “Midbrain dopamine neurons consist of three largely contiguous cell groups: the retrorubral field (cell group A8 in the rat nomenclature), the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc, A9), and the ventral tegmental area (VTA, A10) [28, 29].”

    From A neoHebbian framework for episodic memory; role of dopamine-dependent late LTP (2011) · cites this paper as [29]

  • The lateral, but not medial, SNr projects to the basolateral and central amygdala.

    “Notably, the lateral, but not medial, SNr projects to the basolateral and central amygdala55, key regions involved in anxiety regulation56–58.”

    From Dopamine dynamics as a regulatory mechanism for shifting between defensive and reward-seeking behaviors (2026) · cites this paper as [55]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Beckstead, R. M., Domesick, V. B., & Nauta, W. J. H.
Affiliations
McLean Hospital (US)
Corresponding author
Nauta, Walle J.H.
Venue
Brain Research
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
1979-10
Volume
175
Issue
2
Pages
191-217
ISSN
0006-8993 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/0006-8993(79)91001-1
OpenAlex
W2067071952
Cited by
1,293
References
66
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 40 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 27 · 2014: 21 · 2013: 34 · 2012: 24
FWCI
15.20
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Brain Research (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Neurology › Neurological disorders and treatments
Keywords
substantia nigra, ventral tegmental area, nigrostriatal pathway, nucleus accumbens, thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, medial septum, raphe nuclei, locus coeruleus, pedunculopontine nucleus, substantia nigra pars reticulata
MeSH terms
Amygdala, Animals, Autoradiography, Cerebral Cortex, Corpus Callosum, Corpus Striatum, Efferent Pathways, Female, Hypothalamus, Male, Medial Forebrain Bundle, Nerve Fibers, Substantia Nigra, Tegmentum Mesencephali, Thalamic Nuclei, Rats

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review