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Mesolimbic dopamine (DA) neurons play a central role in motivation and reward processing. Although the activity of these mesolimbic DA neurons is controlled by afferent inputs, little is known about the circuits in which they are embedded. Using retrograde tracing, electrophysiology, optogenetics, and behavioral assays, we identify principles of afferent-specific control in the mesolimbic DA system...
Many learned responses depend on the coordinated activation and inhibition of synaptic pathways in the striatum. Local dopamine neurotransmission acts in concert with a variety of neurotransmitters to regulate cortical, thalamic, and limbic excitatory inputs to drive the direct and indirect striatal spiny projection neuron outputs that determine the activity, sequence, and timing of learned behaviors...
Learning vocal behaviors, like speech and birdsong, is thought to rely on continued performance evaluation. Whether candidate performance evaluation circuits in the brain are sufficient to guide vocal learning is not known. Here, we test the sufficiency of VTA projections to the vocal basal ganglia in singing zebra finches, a songbird species that learns to produce a complex and stereotyped multi-syllabic...
Maternal behaviors are essential for the survival of the young. Previous studies implicated the medial preoptic area (MPOA) as an important region for maternal behaviors, but details of the maternal circuit remain incompletely understood. Here we identify estrogen receptor alpha (Esr1)-expressing cells in the MPOA as key mediators of pup approach and retrieval. Reversible inactivation of MPOAEsr1+...
Contexts exert bi-directional control over relapse to drug seeking. Contexts associated with drug self-administration promote relapse, whereas contexts associated with the absence of self-administration protect against relapse. The nucleus accumbens shell (AcbSh) is a key brain region determining these roles of context. However, the specific cell types, and projections, by which AcbSh serves these...
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