A concurrent excitation and inhibition of dopaminergic subpopulations in response to nicotine

• DOI: 10.1038/srep08184
• Publication Date: 2015-02-02T10:04:05Z
• Authors: Raphaël Eddine; Sebastien Valverde; Stefania Tolu; Daniel Dautan; Audrey Hay; Carole Morel; Yihui Cui; Bertrand Lambolez; Laurent Venance; Fabio Marti; Philippe Faure
• Keywords: Reward system

Abstract Midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons are key players in motivation and reward processing. Increased DA release is thought to be central the initiation of drug addiction. Whereas generally considered activated by drugs such as nicotine, we report here that nicotine not only induces excitation ventral tegmental area (VTA) cells but also inhibition a subset VTA anatomically segregated medial part VTA. These opposite responses do correlate with induced noxious stimuli. We show this requires D2 receptor (D2-R) activation, suggesting dopaminergic involved mechanism. Our findings suggest principle concurrent response nicotine. It promotes unexplored roles for addiction contrasting classical views reinforcement give rise new interpretation mode operation system.