Neuron | 2021
An ongoing saga of nicotine complexity and dopamine heterogeneity: Nicotine activation and inhibition mediating reward and anxiety
Abstract
In this issue of Neuron, Nguyen and colleagues (Nguyen et\xa0al., 2021) investigate nicotine s effects on diverse midbrain dopamine neurons. Their findings provide new understanding of the functional role of ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine neurons and reveal topographically distinct, pathway-specific, and opposite dopaminergic responses to nicotine that likely mediate reward and anxiety, respectively.