Effects of Blockade of Dopamine D1/D2 Receptors on the Single and Network Activity of Neurons in the Frontal and Visual Cortex and Behavior in Cats

Kuleshova, E. P.; Zaleshin, Alexander; Sidorina, V. V.; Merzhanova, G. Kh.

doi:10.1007/s11055-011-9480-z

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“…As an important part of the mesencephalic reward circuitry, the ventral tegmental area (VTA) has often been considered a potential center for distributing reward information to various sensory cortices ( Tan, 2009 ; Kuleshova et al, 2010 ), and may play an important role in sensory information processing. In mature rats, tonotopic representation in the auditory cortex can still be largely rebuilt by paired activation of the VTA and auditory neurons ( Bao et al, 2001 , 2003 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ventral tegmental area activation promotes firing precision and strength through circuit inhibition in the primary auditory cortex

Lou

Luo

Zhang

et al. 2014

Front. Neural Circuits

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The activation of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) can rebuild the tonotopic representation in the primary auditory cortex (A1), but the cellular mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here, we investigated the firing patterns and membrane potential dynamics of neurons in A1 under the influence of VTA activation using in vivo intracellular recording. We found that VTA activation can significantly reduce the variability of sound evoked responses and promote the firing precision and strength of A1 neurons. Furthermore, the compressed response window was caused by an early hyperpolarization as a result of enhanced circuit inhibition. Our study suggested a possible mechanism of how the reward system affects information processing in sensory cortex: VTA activation strengthens cortical inhibition, which shortens the response window of post-synaptic cortical neurons and further promotes the precision and strength of neuronal activity.

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