Summary: Persistent Adaptations in Afferents to Ventral Tegmental Dopamine Neurons After Opiate Withdrawal

[aston_jones]

The ventral tegmental (VTA) is a complex and heterogeneous structure. Dopaminergic (DA) neurons are a major population of VTA neurons and play a crucial role in reward processes, motivated behavior and drug addiction. Opiate addiction is a growing public health problem, and understanding the mechanisms of opiate actions in brain is crucial in order to treat dependent patients. For those reasons, we focused this study on the acute and chronic effects of morphine on the activity of VTA DA neurons.

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