RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Somatostatin-expressing neurons in the ventral tegmental area innervate specific forebrain regions and are involved in the stress response
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2023.01.06.522982
DO 10.1101/2023.01.06.522982
A1 Elina Nagaeva
A1 Annika Schäfer
A1 Anni-Maija Linden
A1 Lauri V. Elsilä
A1 Maria Ryazantseva
A1 Juzoh Umemori
A1 Ksenia Egorova
A1 Esa R. Korpi
YR 2023
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/01/06/2023.01.06.522982.abstract
AB Expanding knowledge about the cellular composition of subcortical brain regions demonstrates large heterogeneity and differences from the cortical architecture. Recently, we described three subtypes of somatostatin-expressing (Sst) neurons in the mouse ventral tegmental area (VTA) and showed their local inhibitory action on the neighbouring dopaminergic neurons (Nagaeva et al., 2020). Here, we report that VTA Sst neurons also project far outside the VTA and innervate several forebrain regions that are mainly involved in the regulation of emotional behaviour. When we deleted these VTA Sst neurons several behaviours and drug effects were affected, such as home cage activity, sensitization of locomotor activity to morphine, fear conditioning responses, and reactions to inescapable stress of forced swimming, often in a sex-dependent manner. Interestingly, the majority of these Sst projecting neurons was found to express Vglut2 and Th, but not Dat. Together, these data demonstrate that VTA Sst neurons have their selective projection targets, which are distinct from the main targets of VTA dopamine neurons and involved in the regulation of a variety of behaviours mostly associated with the stress response. This, in turn, makes these VTA neurons a meaningful addition to the somatostatinergic system of the brain.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.