, 2007, Mirenowicz and Schultz, 1996, Pan et al., 2005, Stuber et al., 2008, Tobler et al., 2005 and Waelti et al., 2001). The endogenous burst activity of DA neurons is at least partially regulated by NMDA activation, likely induced by excitatory VTA afferents (Chergui et al., 1993, Deister et al., 2009, Johnson et al., 1992, Overton and Clark, 1992 and Zweifel et al., 2009). Pharmacological blockade of GABAA receptors can also induce burst firing of DA neurons (Paladini et al., 1999 and Paladini and Tepper,

1999), although this is likely because spontaneous excitatory activity onto DA neurons becomes dominant (i.e., disrupted excitatory/inhibitory balance). Importantly, single nonburst action potentials recorded from DA neurons are more efficiently blocked by GABA activation compared to spikes that occur in bursts (Lobb et al., 2010). Thus, it is possible that VTA GABA neuronal activity and other Selleck IPI-145 neurotransmitters in the VTA may not efficiently suppress

the activity of VTA DA neurons at times when this website they are receiving excitatory afferent activation that drives bursting. Supporting this, the current study found that VTA GABA activation is less efficacious at suppressing NAc DA release in vivo when VTA DA neurons are excited at higher stimulation frequencies (Figure 5). Importantly, it was recently demonstrated that VTA GABA neurons show enhanced activity during a cue that predicts a reward (Cohen et al., 2012). This might explain why VTA GABA activation during the cue period in the current study did not alter licking behavior; these neurons might already be endogenously activated

and, thus, are less susceptible to further depolarization at this time. Overall, these reasons could explain why optogenetic stimulation Oxymatrine of VTA GABA neurons did not affect behavioral responding to reward predictive cues in the current study but could disrupt behavioral responding at a time when DA and GABA neurons would be predicted to be firing at basal levels. According to the reward-prediction error hypothesis of DA function (Schultz, 1998), efficient inhibition of VTA DA neuronal activity following reward delivery would not only disrupt reward consumption but also would alter anticipatory responding to predictive cues on subsequent trials. In the present study, we did not observe a reduction in anticipatory licking when VTA GABA neurons were activated during the 5 s following reward delivery. However, an even stronger stimulation, lasting 10 s following reward delivery, showed a trend for decreased cue-evoked licking (Figure S2). It is likely that anticipatory responses were not effected here because mice would immediately return and consume the awaiting reward upon the termination of the optical stimulation, which is distinct from the reward omission used in previous electrophysiological studies.