Xiao Lei's team revealed the regulatory role and loop mechanism of VTA D1 neurons on anxiety-like behavior

On October 4, 2022, Xiao Lei's team of young researchers from the Institute of Brain Sciences/State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology of Fudan University published online on Molecular Psychiatry titled "D1 receptor-expressing neurons in ventral tegmental area alleviate mouse anxiety-like behaviors via.
" The research paper "glutamatergic projection to lateral septum" reveals the important role of the ventral covered area (VTA) D1 receptor and D1 neurons in anxiety-like behavior regulation and neural circuit mechanisms
.

Anxiety disorders are an emotional disorder whose prevalence is increasing year by year, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, placing a heavy burden on
families and societies.
Dopamine (DA) plays a key role in the regulation of emotion and emotion, and VTA is one of the main distribution brain regions of
DA neurons.
Previous research has found that VTA DA neurons can project to multiple areas of the midbrain limbic system to regulate anxiety-like and depressing-like behaviors
by activating D1 receptors.
In addition to regulating downstream brain regions, VTA DA neurons can also release DA locally at VTA, but the role of VTA local DA signaling in emotion regulation is unclear
.

The Shoray research team first found that activating/inhibiting VTA D1 receptors alleviates/increases anxiety-like behavior
in female and male mice through casing administration and D1 receptor RNA interference experiments.
Using fluorescence in situ hybridization, the expression distribution of D1 receptors on various types of VTA neurons was analyzed in detail
.
Through experimental means such as optogenetics and chemical genetics, it was found that activating/inhibiting VTA D1 neurons can alleviate/increase anxiety-like behavior
in mice.
Finally, through loop tracing, optogenetics, and pharmacology, it was found that VTA D1 neurons release glutamic acid by projecting to the lateral septum (LS) to exert anxiolytic effects
.
The study clarified the expression of D1 receptors in VTA neurons, revealed the regulation of local dopamine signaling in anxiety behavior, and discovered the role
of the VTA-LS glutamatergic neural circuit in relieving anxiety-like behavior.

Tong Qiuping, a doctoral student at the Institute of Brain Science of Fudan University, is the first author, and Xiao Lei, a young researcher at the Academy of Brain Sciences/State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, is the corresponding author
of this paper.
The research has been funded and supported
by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project and Zhangjiang Laboratory.