Big thanks to co-author Gisela Lazzarino for all the hard work—from idea to publication.

Read the full story here: doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

7/7

Finally, we show that dopamine is released in the LSS in response to both rewarding (sugar pellets) and aversive (foot-shock) stimuli.

However, rewards elicit much larger dopamine transients, suggesting dopamine in the LSS may encode both salience and reward. 6/7

Takeaway: All movement—not merely locomotion—must be accounted for when studying striatal activity—especially in fiber photometry and calcium imaging studies. 5/7

We also recorded bulk signals from more medial ventral striatum and found the same pattern: neural activity, but not dopamine release, correlates with body movement. 4/7

The activity of these MC4R-neurons—and local glutamate release—is closely linked to movement.

Interestingly, dopamine release is not. This suggests that glutamate, not dopamine, may be the short-term driver of these neurons during behavior. 3/7

We show that MC4R is expressed in the LSS, and that the MC4R-Cre mouse line can be used to target atypical D1 neurons in the LSS.

These neurons are activated by both rewarding and aversive stimuli—but optogenetic activation is rewarding. 2/7

Thank you for a great review! Not in the DLS, but we recently showed that glutamate release and neural activity in the lateral stripe of the striatum correlates well with movement, while dopamine does not (same is true for nucleus accumbens core). www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...