Concept
Ventral tegmental area
Overview
The ventral tegmental area (VTA) (tegmentum is Latin for covering), also known as the ventral tegmental area of Tsai, or simply ventral tegmentum, is a group of neurons located close to the midline on the floor of the midbrain. The VTA is the origin of the dopaminergic cell bodies of the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system and other dopamine pathways; it is widely implicated in the drug and natural reward circuitry of the brain. The VTA plays an important role in a number of processes, including reward cognition (motivational salience, associative learning, and positively-valenced emotions) and orgasm, among others, as well as several psychiatric disorders. Neurons in the VTA project to numerous areas of the brain, ranging from the prefrontal cortex to the caudal brainstem and several regions in between.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The cavity which one thus enters from without is named the fourth ventricle (4 in Figs. 32 and 33). One can run the probe forward through it, passing first under the cerebellum and then under a thin sheet of nervous tissue (the _valve of Vieussens_) just anterior thereto, as far as the _aqueduct of Silvius_. Passing through this, the probe emerges forward into what was once the cavity of the anterior vesicle. But…
William James, Psychology
States what Ventral tegmental area is.
"Mnemic phenomena" are defined as those due to engrams; in animals, they are specially associated with the nervous system, but not exclusively, even in man. When two stimuli occur together, one of them, occurring afterwards, may call out the reaction for the other also. We call this an "ekphoric influence," and stimuli having this character are called "ekphoric stimuli." In such a case we call the engrams of the two…
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
States what Ventral tegmental area is.
The symptom in the true neuroses is frequently the nucleus and incipient stage of development of the psychoneurotic symptom. Such a connection is most easily observed between neurasthenia and the transference neuroses, which are termed conversion hysteria, between anxiety neurosis and anxiety hysteria, but also between hypochondria and paraphrenia (dementia praecox and paranoia), forms of neuroses of which we shall…
Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
States what Ventral tegmental area is.
Related ideas
- Emotion
- Cognition
- Prefrontal cortex
- Limbic system
- Motivation
- Schizophrenia
- Dopamine
- Human brain
- Glutamic acid
- Reward system
- Drug
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Meaning of life.