Anatomy and Function of Ventral Tegmental Area Glutamate Neurons

Authors

Jing Cai
Qingchun Tong

Publication Date

1-1-2022

Journal

Frontiers in Neural Circuits

DOI

10.3389/fncir.2022.867053

PMID

35669454

PMCID

PMC9164627

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

5-20-2022

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Abstract

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is well known for regulating reward consumption, learning, memory, and addiction behaviors through mediating dopamine (DA) release in downstream regions. Other than DA neurons, the VTA is known to be heterogeneous and contains other types of neurons, including glutamate neurons. In contrast to the well-studied and established functions of DA neurons, the role of VTA glutamate neurons is understudied, presumably due to their relatively small quantity and a lack of effective means to study them. Yet, emerging studies have begun to reveal the importance of glutamate release from VTA neurons in regulating diverse behavioral repertoire through a complex intra-VTA and long-range neuronal network. In this review, we summarize the features of VTA glutamate neurons from three perspectives, namely, cellular properties, neural connections, and behavioral functions. Delineation of VTA glutamatergic pathways and their interactions with VTA DA neurons in regulating behaviors may reveal previously unappreciated functions of the VTA in other physiological processes.

Keywords

Dopamine, Dopaminergic Neurons, Glutamic Acid, Reward, Ventral Tegmental Area, VGLUT2, VTA, addiction, dopamine, neural circuits, reward

Published Open-Access

yes

Recommended Citation

Jing Cai and Qingchun Tong, "Anatomy and Function of Ventral Tegmental Area Glutamate Neurons" (2022). Faculty, Staff and Student Publications. 3191.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/uthgsbs_docs/3191