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Overlapping representations of food and social stimuli in VTA dopamine neurons

Authors :
Lindsay Willmore
Adelaide R. Minerva
Ben Engelhard
Malavika Murugan
Brenna McMannon
Nirja Oak
Stephan Y. Thiberge
Catherine J. Peña
Ilana B. Witten
Source :
bioRxiv
Publication Year :
2023
Publisher :
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2023.

Abstract

SummaryDopamine neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTADA) respond to food and social stimuli and contribute to both forms of motivation. However, it is unclear if the same or different VTADAneurons encode these different stimuli. To address this question, we performed 2-photon calcium imaging in mice presented with food and conspecifics, and found statistically significant overlap in the populations responsive to both stimuli. Both hunger and opposite-sex social experience further increased the proportion of neurons that respond to both stimuli, implying that modifying motivation for one stimulus affects responses to both stimuli. In addition, single-nucleus RNA sequencing revealed significant co-expression of feeding- and social-hormone related genes in individual VTADAneurons. Taken together, our functional and transcriptional data suggest overlapping VTADApopulations underlie food and social motivation.

Subjects

Subjects :
Article

Details

Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
bioRxiv
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....a04fd345aa1951a863123fc8da3b07fd