Ventral Tegmental Area
Article
Ventral Tegmental Area is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between September 30, 2022 and August 13, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “phasic bursting of dopamine neurons in the Ventral Tegmental Area”; “ventral tegmental area (VTA), which contains the dopamine neurons”; “aka ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens, aka the reward center”. It most often appears alongside dopamine, nucleus accumbens, VTA.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: September 30, 2022
- Last seen: August 13, 2024
Appears In
Related Pages
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- dopamine (2 shared issues)
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- nucleus accumbens (2 shared issues)
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- VTA (2 shared issues)
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- 5HT2A serotonin (1 shared issues)
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- acetylcholine (1 shared issues)
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- alcoholism (1 shared issues)
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- Alhadeff et al. (2012) (1 shared issues)
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- Alice (1 shared issues)
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- alpha-adrenergic receptors (1 shared issues)
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- Alzheimer’s (1 shared issues)
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- Alzheimers (1 shared issues)
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- Andres (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
1. A "state prediction error" or general surprise signal from PFC (either directly or via pedunculopontine nucleus and related structures). This provokes phasic bursting of dopamine neurons in the Ventral Tegmental Area.
Most people think this is the case because when you put subjects in an fMRI scanner and have them do tasks where they get reward or learn cues that are associated with reward, you robustly get RPE-related BOLD activity in the NAc, and only rarely/more weakly in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), which contains the dopamine neurons that project to the NAc. So when you see those nice fMRI maps, the NAc is lit up in red. But the physiological basis of this fMRI signal is hotly debated (for example, it could represent primarily synaptic input rather than actual neuronal firing, especially in a GABAergic circuit like the striatum), and in single-unit recordings in mice, rats, and monkeys, it is unequivocal that dopamine neurons in the VTA show much more RPE signaling than the striatum.
Let’s go back to the second pathway by which GLP-1 causes weight loss, which goes through the mesolimbic system, aka ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens, aka the reward center.
Inline links: goes through the mesolimbic system
The nucleus tractus solitarii uses neurotransmitter-GLP-1 to inhibit the ventral tegmental area, which then releases less dopamine into the nucleus accumbens. Dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens act as a multiplier for reward (that is, a given reward feels more rewarding when there’s high dopamine in those areas).