Brief, high-concentration (phasic) spikes in nucleus accumbens dopamine critically participate in aspects of food reward. Although physiological state (e.g., hunger, satiety) and associated hormones are known to affect dopamine tone in general, whether they modulate food-evoked, phasic dopamine specifically is unknown. Here, we used fast-scan cyclic voltammetry in awake, behaving rats to record dopamine spikes evoked by delivery of sugar pellets while pharmacologically manipulating central receptors for the gut “hunger” hormone ghrelin. Lateral ventricular (LV) ghrelin increased, while LV ghrelin receptor antagonism suppressed the magnitude of dopamine spikes evoked by food. Ghrelin was effective when infused directly into the lateral hypothalamus (LH), but not the ventral tegmental area (VTA). LH infusions were made in close proximity to orexin neurons, which are regulated by ghrelin and project to the VTA. Thus, we also investigated and found potentiation of food-evoked dopamine spikes by intra-VTA orexin-A. Importantly, intra-VTA blockade of orexin receptors attenuated food intake induced by LV ghrelin, thus establishing a behaviorally relevant connection between central ghrelin and VTA orexin. Further analysis revealed that food restriction increased the magnitude of dopamine spikes evoked by food independent of any pharmacological manipulations. The results support the regulation of food-evoked dopamine spikes by physiological state with endogenous fluctuations in ghrelin as a key contributor. Our data highlight a novel mechanism by which signals relating physiological state could influence food reinforcement and food-directed behavior.

Drugs of abuse hijack brain-reward circuitry during the addiction process by augmenting action potential-dependent phasic dopamine release events associated with learning and goal-directed behavior. One prominent exception to this notion would appear to be amphetamine (AMPH) and related analogs, which are proposed instead to disrupt normal patterns of dopamine neurotransmission by depleting vesicular stores and promoting nonexocytotic dopamine efflux via reverse transport. This mechanism of AMPH action, though, is inconsistent with its therapeutic effects and addictive properties, which are thought to be reliant on phasic dopamine signaling. Here we used fast-scan cyclic voltammetry in freely moving rats to interrogate principal neurochemical responses to AMPH in the striatum and relate these changes to behavior. First, we showed that AMPH dose-dependently enhanced evoked dopamine responses to phasic-like current pulse trains for up to 2 h. Modeling the data revealed that AMPH inhibited dopamine uptake but also unexpectedly potentiated vesicular dopamine release. Second, we found that AMPH increased the amplitude, duration, and frequency of spontaneous dopamine transients, the naturally occurring, nonelectrically evoked, phasic increases in extracellular dopamine. Finally, using an operant sugar reward paradigm, we showed that low-dose AMPH augmented dopamine transients elicited by sugar-predictive cues. However, operant behavior failed at high-dose AMPH, which was due to phasic dopamine hyperactivity and the decoupling of dopamine transients from the reward predictive cue. These findings identify upregulation of exocytotic dopamine release as a key AMPH action in behaving animals and support a unified mechanism of abused drugs to activate phasic dopamine signaling.

Adaptive motivated behavior requires rapid discrimination between beneficial and harmful stimuli. Such discrimination leads to the generation of either an approach or rejection response, as appropriate, and enables organisms to maximize reward and minimize punishment. Classically, the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and the dopamine projection to it are considered an integral part of the brain’s reward circuit, i.e., they direct approach and consumption behaviors and underlie positive reinforcement. This reward-centered framing ignores important evidence about the role of this system in encoding aversive events. One reason for bias toward reward is the difficulty in designing experiments in which animals repeatedly experience punishments; another is the challenge in dissociating the response to an aversive stimulus itself from the reward/relief experienced when an aversive stimulus is terminated. Here, we review studies that employ techniques with sufficient time resolution to measure responses in ventral tegmental area and NAc to aversive stimuli as they are delivered. We also present novel findings showing that the same stimulus – intra-oral infusion of sucrose – has differing effects on NAc shell dopamine release depending on the prior experience. Here, for some rats, sucrose was rendered aversive by explicitly pairing it with malaise in a conditioned taste aversion paradigm. Thereafter, sucrose infusions led to a suppression of dopamine with a similar magnitude and time course to intra-oral infusions of a bitter quinine solution. The results are discussed in the context of regional differences in dopamine signaling and the implications of a pause in phasic dopamine release within the NAc shell. Together with our data, the emerging literature suggests an important role for differential phasic dopamine signaling in aversion vs. reward.

The development of diet-induced obesity (DIO) can potently alter multiple aspects of dopamine signaling, including dopamine transporter (DAT) expression and dopamine reuptake. However, the time-course of diet-induced changes in DAT expression and function and whether such changes are dependent upon the development of DIO remains unresolved. Here, we fed rats a high (HFD) or low (LFD) fat diet for 2 or 6 weeks. Following diet exposure, rats were anesthetized with urethane and striatal DAT function was assessed by electrically stimulating the dopamine cell bodies in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and recording resultant changes in dopamine concentration in the ventral striatum using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry. We also quantified the effect of HFD on membrane associated DAT in striatal cell fractions from a separate group of rats following exposure to the same diet protocol. Notably, none of our treatment groups differed in body weight. We found a deficit in the rate of dopamine reuptake in HFD rats relative to LFD rats after 6 but not 2 weeks of diet exposure. Additionally, the increase in evoked dopamine following a pharmacological challenge of cocaine was significantly attenuated in HFD relative to LFD rats. Western blot analysis revealed that there was no effect of diet on total DAT protein. However, 6 weeks of HFD exposure significantly reduced the 50 kDa DAT isoform in a synaptosomal membrane-associated fraction, but not in a fraction associated with recycling endosomes. Our data provide further evidence for diet-induced alterations in dopamine reuptake independent of changes in DAT production and demonstrates that such changes can manifest without the development of DIO.