In contrast, in neurons projecting to dopamine neurons, dendrites curved and coursed circuitously or turned inward toward the soma (Figure 6K). Furthermore, spines of inputs to GABAergic neurons were evenly

spaced and were of similar size. In contrast, inputs to dopamine neurons had uneven spines and varicosities, and their dendrites were irregular in contour (Figures 6D and 6H, inset). These results suggest that, whereas neurons projecting to GABAergic neurons are Selleckchem AZD5363 consistent with typical medium spiny neurons, neurons projecting to dopaminergic neurons have significantly different morphologies. We make two conclusions from these data: First, striatal neurons do project monosynaptically to dopamine neurons; and second, our technique is capable of revealing exquisite, cell-type-specific connectivity. Whereas SNc dopamine neurons receive the most input from the DS, VTA dopamine Selleck CT99021 neurons receive the most input from the Acb (Figure 3). Although heterogeneity of the Acb was reported previously with different molecular markers (Zahm and Brog, 1992), a patch/matrix organization has not been documented consistently.

We found that neurons that project to dopamine neurons form patches in the VS, albeit much larger than the patches found in the DS (Figure 7). These “ventral patches” contain extremely dense groups of labeled neurons (Figure 7A). Staining of calbindin D-28k showed that EGFP-positive neurons were found preferentially where calbindin D-28k expressions are lower, although dopamine-neuron-projecting patches were smaller than areas defined by weak staining

of calbindin D-28k (Figures 7B–7D). Comparison across animals indicates stereotypical patterns of dopamine neuron-projecting patches (Figures 7E–7J; Figure S5). For this, we first identified regions with high density of labeled neurons (“predicted patches”) using four of five animals tested (v009, v001, v010, v004, and v003). In the one remaining animal, we then obtained the proportion of labeled neurons that fell into the contour of the predicted patches. This proportion was then compared against that expected from a random distribution (i.e., percentage of the Acb contained old within the predicted contours). This analysis showed that neurons tended to localize within the contours obtained from other animals (Figure 7J; p < 0.02, paired t test). These results support the idea that Acb neurons indeed project to dopamine neurons and that most of these neurons are clustered in stereotypical locations, or “ventral patches,” which were overlooked in previous studies. In the present study, we developed a technique to obtain a comprehensive list of monosynaptic inputs to midbrain dopamine neurons. Our direct comparison of inputs to VTA and SNc dopamine neurons resolves several outstanding questions that previous methodologies lacked the specificity to address.