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The cerebellum has long been implicated in the etiopathogenesis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and emerging evidence suggests a significant contribution by reciprocal neural circuits between the cerebellum and ventral tegmental area (VTA) in symptom expression. This review provides a concise overview of morphological and functional alterations in the cerebellum and VTA associated with ASD symptoms, primarily focusing on human studies while also integrating mechanistic insights from animal models. We propose that cerebello-VTA circuit dysfunctional is a major contributor to ASD symptoms and that these circuits are promising targets for drugs and therapeutic brain stimulation methods.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S485487 | DOI Listing |
Mol Psychiatry
September 2025
Center for Depression, Anxiety and Stress Research, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.
Dysregulated dopaminergic signaling has been implicated in the pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD) and childhood sexual abuse (CSA), but inconsistencies abound. In a multimodal PET-functional MRI study, harnessing the highly selective tracer [C]altropane, we investigated dopamine transporter availability (DAT) and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) within reward-related regions among 112 unmedicated individuals (MDD: n = 37, MDD/CSA: n = 18; CSA no MDD: n = 14; controls: n = 43). Striatal DAT and seed-based rsFC were assessed in the dorsal and ventral striatum and the ventral tegmental area.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZool Res
September 2025
Research Center of Henan Provincial Agricultural Biomass Resource Engineering and Technology, College of Life Science, Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang, Henan 473061, China.
Social hierarchies are central to the organizational structure of group-living species, shaping individual physiology, behavior, and social interactions. Dopaminergic (DA) systems, particularly within the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and dorsal raphe nucleus (DR), have been linked to motivation and competitive behaviors, yet their region-specific contributions to social dominance remain insufficiently defined. This study investigated the role of VTA and DR DA neurons in regulating social dominance in sexually naïve male C57BL/6J mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell Stem Cell
September 2025
Department of Psychology, Sapienza University, via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Rome, Italy; IRCCS San Raffaele, via di Val Cannuta 247, 00166 Rome, Italy. Electronic address:
Dysfunction of A10 midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) neurons is linked to psychiatric disorders, such as depression. In this issue, Yan et al. present an efficient method for differentiating human pluripotent stem cells into A10-like mDA neurons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBrain Res
September 2025
Neuroscience Laboratory for Cognitive and Developmental Disorders, Department of Anatomy, Medical College of Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China. Electronic address:
Orexin (Orx) is a vital peptide neurotransmitter essential for regulating feeding, sleep-wake cycles, and reward-seeking behavior. Orexinergic neurons are predominantly located in the lateral hypothalamus (LH). However, the precise neural connectivity of these neurons across the brain remains insufficiently characterized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFbioRxiv
August 2025
Dept. of Psychology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Reward-predictive cues trigger dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens core (NAc). This signal has long been thought to mediate motivation. However, understanding of dopamine function is complicated by the fact that reward cues not only motivate reward pursuit, but also enable the reward predictions that shape how reward is pursued.
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