Stimulation of the ventral tegmental area induces visual cortical plasticity at the neuronal level

Herpers, Jerome; Arsenault, John; Vanduffel, Wim; Vogels, Rufin

doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109998

Cited by 8 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 61 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, it is unknown whether such long periods of VTA-EM pairing are required to obtain changes in responses in sensory cortical areas. We do know that relatively few VTA-EM-stimulus pairing events suffice to bias behavioral preferences of a monkey towards the paired stimulus within a single experimental session (Arsenault et al, 2014;Herpers et al, 2021; this paper), but it is not known whether such a relatively small number of VTA-EM-stimulus pairings also changes sensory responses in cortical areas. In fact, the time course of the effects of VTA-EM-stimulus pairing in primate visual cortex is still unknown.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Two male rhesus macaques (Macaca Mulatta), that also participated in the study of (Herpers et al, 2021), were used in this study (M1: ∼9kg, 7 years old; M2: ∼10kg, 7 years old). Both subjects were trained in fixation tasks for electrical micro-stimulation of the VTA (VTA-EM) and electrophysiological recordings.…”

Section: Experimental Model and Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Electrical micro-stimulation of the ventral tegmental area (VTA-EM) can have long-lasting effects on cortical responses to stimuli that were paired with VTA-EM (Arsenault & Vanduffel, 2019;Bao et al, 2001;Herpers et al, 2021;Murris et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Monkey studies showed that when a task-irrelevant visual feature is paired with VTA-EM, while attention is drawn away from this stimulus, the representation of that feature increases in posterior inferior temporal cortex (PIT), at both fMRI (Arsenault & Vanduffel, 2019;Murris et al, 2021) and spiking activity level (Herpers et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To examine this, we paired visual stimuli with VTA-EM during passive fixation in brief epochs of ~60 stimulus-VTA-EM pairings, interleaved with multiunit activity (MUA) recordings in macaque PIT. We recorded from this extrastriate visual area, since previous studies (Arsenault & Vanduffel, 2019;Herpers et al, 2021) showed changes in the responses of PIT neurons, yet after extensive VTA-EM stimulus pairings. We employed fractals as visual stimuli since these are effective stimuli to drive PIT neurons.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Limited Pairings of Electrical Micro-stimulation of the Ventral Tegmental Area and a Visual Stimulus Enhance Visual Cortical Responses

Herpers

Vanduffel

Vogels

2022

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Previous studies demonstrated that pairing a visual stimulus and electrical micro-stimulation of the ventral tegmental area (VTA-EM) for multiple days is sufficient to induce visual cortical plasticity and changes perception. However, a brief epoch of VTA-EM–stimulus pairing within a single day has been shown to result in a behavioral preference for the paired stimulus. Here, we investigated whether a brief single-day session of VTA-EM–stimulus pairings is sufficient to induce changes in visual cortical responses. We examined macaque posterior inferior temporal (PIT) cortex because previous studies demonstrated response changes after VTA-EM stimulus pairing in that area. Multi-unit recordings in PIT were interleaved with VTA-EM–stimulus pairing epochs. During the short VTA-EM–stimulus pairing epochs (60 pairings), one image (fractal) was paired with VTA-EM (STIM) whereas another, unpaired fractal was presented as control. Two other fractals (dummies) were presented only during the recordings. The difference in response between the STIM and control fractals already increased after the first VTA-EM–stimulus pairing epoch, reflecting a relative increase of the response to the STIM fractal. However, the response to the STIM fractal did not increase further with more VTA-EM–stimulus pairing epochs. The relative increase in firing rate for the paired fractal was present early in the response, in line with a local/ bottom–up origin. These effects were absent when comparing the responses to the dummies pre- and post-VTA-EM. This study shows that pairing a visual image and VTA-EM in a brief single-day session is sufficient to increase the response for the paired image in macaque PIT.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Experimental Model and Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%