Hui May, Beier Kevin T
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States.
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States.
Front Mol Neurosci. 2022 Jul 22;15:971349. doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2022.971349. eCollection 2022.
Dysfunction in dopamine (DA) signaling contributes to neurological disorders ranging from drug addiction and schizophrenia to depression and Parkinson's Disease. How might impairment of one neurotransmitter come to effect these seemingly disparate diseases? One potential explanation is that unique populations of DA-releasing cells project to separate brain regions that contribute to different sets of behaviors. Though dopaminergic cells themselves are spatially restricted to the midbrain and constitute a relatively small proportion of all neurons, their projections influence many brain regions. DA is particularly critical for the activity and function of medial prefrontal cortical (mPFC) ensembles. The midbrain and mPFC exhibit reciprocal connectivity - the former innervates the mPFC, and in turn, the mPFC projects back to the midbrain. Viral mapping studies have helped elucidate the connectivity within and between these regions, which likely have broad implications for DA-dependent behaviors. In this review, we discuss advancements in our understanding of the connectivity between the mPFC and midbrain DA system, focusing primarily on rodent models.
多巴胺（DA）信号传导功能障碍会导致一系列神经系统疾病，从药物成瘾、精神分裂症到抑郁症和帕金森病。一种神经递质的损伤是如何影响这些看似截然不同的疾病的呢？一种可能的解释是，释放DA的细胞的独特群体投射到不同的脑区，这些脑区促成了不同的行为组合。尽管多巴胺能细胞本身在空间上局限于中脑，并且在所有神经元中所占比例相对较小，但它们的投射会影响许多脑区。DA对内侧前额叶皮质（mPFC）神经元群的活动和功能尤为关键。中脑和mPFC表现出相互连接——前者支配mPFC，反过来，mPFC又投射回中脑。病毒图谱研究有助于阐明这些区域内部和之间的连接，这可能对依赖DA的行为具有广泛影响。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了我们对mPFC和中脑DA系统之间连接的理解进展，主要关注啮齿动物模型。
