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Science 26 March 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5666, pp. 2040 - 2042
DOI: 10.1126/science.1093360

Reports

Uniform Inhibition of Dopamine Neurons in the Ventral Tegmental Area by Aversive Stimuli

Mark A. Ungless,*{dagger} Peter J. Magill, J. Paul Bolam

Dopamine neurons play a key role in reward-related behaviors. Reward coding theories predict that dopamine neurons will be inhibited by or will not respond to aversive stimuli. Paradoxically, between 3 and 49% of presumed dopamine neurons are excited by aversive stimuli. We found that, in the ventral tegmental area of anesthetized rats, the population of presumed dopamine neurons that are excited by aversive stimuli is actually not dopaminergic. The identified dopamine neurons were inhibited by the aversive stimulus. These findings suggest that dopamine neurons are specifically excited by reward and that a population of nondopamine neurons is excited by aversive stimuli.

Medical Research Council Anatomical Neuropharmacology Unit, Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford, Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TH, UK.


* Present address: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mark.ungless{at}zoo.ox.ac.uk

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)