Diverse control of motivational and consummatory feeding by a hindbrain dopaminergic neural circuit

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Project Summary: The mesolimbic dopamine (DA) system is composed of DA neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and substantia nigra compacta (SNc). It is well studied that DA neurons project to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in mediation of reinforcement learning and reward. But the physiological role of dopamine in specific control of appetite and the underlying neural circuit remain elusive. To assess input-specific effects of motivational feeding behaviors, we employ a multidisciplinary approach combining in vivo optogenetics, in vivo electrophysiology, viral-based circuit tracing, and various behavioral paradigms. We identify a novel VTA-PBN neural circuit that plays a pivotal role in control of appetitive and consummatory feeding. Here we suggest a novel neural mechanism by which a subset of PBN-projecting DA and GABA neurons controls feeding and body weight. We further identify a group of PBN neurons as the post-synaptic targets of the VTA neurons that uniquely contribute to feeding and food-conditioned behavior. This project advances a novel concept that a genetically distinguishable VTA-PBN neural circuit selectively and differentially mediates appetitive response and consummatory feeding under distinct nutritional and cognitive states.