TY - JOUR TI - Oxytocin functions as a spatiotemporal filter for excitatory synaptic inputs to VTA dopamine neurons AU - Xiao, Lei AU - Priest, Michael F AU - Kozorovitskiy, Yevgenia A2 - Manzoni, Olivier Jacques VL - 7 PY - 2018 DA - 2018/04/20 SP - e33892 C1 - eLife 2018;7:e33892 DO - 10.7554/eLife.33892 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.33892 AB - The experience of rewarding or aversive stimuli is encoded by distinct afferents to dopamine (DA) neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Several neuromodulatory systems including oxytocin regulate DA neuron excitability and synaptic transmission that process socially meaningful stimuli. We and others have recently characterized oxytocinergic modulation of activity in mouse VTA DA neurons, but the mechanisms underlying oxytocinergic modulation of synaptic transmission in DA neurons remain poorly understood. Here, we find that oxytocin application or optogenetic release decrease excitatory synaptic transmission, via long lasting, presynaptic, endocannabinoid-dependent mechanisms. Oxytocin modulation of excitatory transmission alters the magnitude of short and long-term depression. We find that only some glutamatergic projections to DA neurons express CB1 receptors. Optogenetic stimulation of three major VTA inputs demonstrates that oxytocin modulation is limited to projections that show evidence of CB1R transcripts. Thus, oxytocin gates information flow into reward circuits in a temporally selective and pathway-specific manner. KW - oxytocin KW - dopamine KW - VTA KW - endocannabinoid KW - synaptic transmission JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -