Nature Communications (Jun 2021)

Ventral tegmental area GABA neurons mediate stress-induced blunted reward-seeking in mice

  • Daniel C. Lowes,
  • Linda A. Chamberlin,
  • Lisa N. Kretsge,
  • Emma S. Holt,
  • Atheir I. Abbas,
  • Alan J. Park,
  • Lyubov Yusufova,
  • Zachary H. Bretton,
  • Ayesha Firdous,
  • Armen G. Enikolopov,
  • Joshua A. Gordon,
  • Alexander Z. Harris

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23906-2
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

Read online

Acute stress transiently disrupts reward-seeking behaviour and repeated stress exposure produces lasting anhedonia-like behaviour in rodents. Here, the authors show that stress triggers GABAergic activity in the ventral tegmental area which blunts reward-seeking behaviour in mice.