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CRF acts in the midbrain to attenuate accumbens dopamine release to rewards but not their predictors

Nature Neuroscience volume 16, pages 383–385 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Stressors affect dopamine-dependent behaviors such as motivation, although the underlying neurobiological mechanism is not well defined. We report that corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) acts in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to reduce the motivation to work for food rewards. CRF in the VTA regulates dopamine output in a stimulus- and pathway-specific manner, offering a mechanism by which acute stress selectively regulates information transmission via the VTA to reprioritize motivated behavior.

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Figure 1: Effect of stress and CRF in the VTA on motivation to work for food rewards during progressive-ratio sessions.
Figure 2: CRF in the VTA attenuates NAcc dopamine release to rewards but not to reward-predictive cues.
Figure 3: CRF in the VTA affects NAcc dopamine release in a pathway-specific manner.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank S. Ng-Evans for invaluable technical support and C. Akers for technical assistance. We thank N. Hollon, J. Clark and S. Sandberg for scientific discussion. This work was funded by the US National Institutes of Health (R01-MH079292, P.E.M.P.; R01-DA016782, A.B. and P.E.M.P.; T32-AA009455 and F32-DA026273, M.J.W.) and NARSAD (P.E.M.P.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Matthew J Wanat & Paul E M Phillips

  2. Department of Pharmacology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Matthew J Wanat & Paul E M Phillips

  3. National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Antonello Bonci

  4. Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.,

    Antonello Bonci

  5. The Solomon H. Snyder Neuroscience Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Antonello Bonci

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  1. Matthew J Wanat
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Contributions

M.J.W., A.B. and P.E.M.P. designed the experiments. M.J.W. collected and analyzed the data. M.J.W. and P.E.M.P. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Paul E M Phillips.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1–9, Supplementary Table 1 (PDF 12066 kb)

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Wanat, M., Bonci, A. & Phillips, P. CRF acts in the midbrain to attenuate accumbens dopamine release to rewards but not their predictors. Nat Neurosci 16, 383–385 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3335

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