Activity of a direct VTA to ventral pallidum GABA pathway encodes unconditioned reward value and sustains motivation for reward
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Dopamine signaling from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) plays critical roles in reward-related behaviors, but less is known about the functions of neighboring VTA GABAergic neurons. We show here that a primary target of VTA GABA projection neurons is the ventral pallidum (VP). Activity of VTA-to-VP-projecting GABA neurons correlates consistently with size and palatability of the reward and does not change following cue learning, providing a direct measure of reward value. Chemogenetic stimulation of this GABA projection increased activity of a subset of VP neurons that were active while mice were seeking reward. Optogenetic stimulation of this pathway improved performance in a cue-reward task and maintained motivation to work for reward over days. This VTA GABA projection provides information about reward value directly to the VP, likely distinct from the prediction error signal carried by VTA dopamine neurons.
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Non-DA neurons within the VTA encode experienced value.
“As a recent study reported that non-DA neurons within VTA encode experienced value, 127”
From Synaptic and circuit functions of multitransmitter neurons in the mammalian brain (2023) · cites this paper as [127]
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Synaptic and circuit functions of multitransmitter neurons in the mammalian brain
Wallace, M. L., & Sabatini, B. L. (2023) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2023.06.003 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
- Authors
- Zhou, W.-L., Kim, K., Ali, F., Pittenger, S. T., Calarco, C. A., Mineur, Y. S., Ramakrishnan, C., Deisseroth, K., Kwan, A. C., & Picciotto, M. R.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Picciotto, Marina R.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2022-10-21
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 42
- Pages
- eabm5217-eabm5217
- ISSN
- 2375-2548 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC9581470
- OpenAlex
- W4306855769
- Cited by
- 45
- References
- 64
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 10
- FWCI
- 4.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Science Advances (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (P40OD010996)
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01DA014241, DP1DA050986, P50DA036151, U54DA036151, R37DA014241)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Keywords
- ventral tegmental area, ventral pallidum, GABAergic neurons, reward value, motivation, reward seeking, dopamine signaling, prediction error, chemogenetic stimulation, optogenetic stimulation
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