Following chronic hyperactivation using chemogenetics, vulnerable substantia nigra dopamine neurons display progressive degeneration unlike neighboring ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons.
Johannes Jacobus Fahrenfort, Philippa A Johnson ... Simon van Gaal
This response counters arguments given in a commentary by Sandberg and Overgaard, 2025 regarding an article in eLife about criterion confounds in neural measures of consciousness based on subjective measures by Fahrenfort et al, 2025.
The substantia nigra inhibits all PPN neurons and causes place aversion, while the globus pallidus selectively inhibits caudal non-cholinergic PPN neurons and causes place preference.