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. 2021 Dec 9;15:774050. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.774050

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Copyright © 2021 Shevchouk, Tufvesson-Alm and Jerlhag.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Schematic illustrations of some selected brain regions central for addictions. Dopamine neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) project (dark blue) to brain regions such as prefrontal cortex (PFC), nucleus accumbens (NAc) subdivisions core and shell, basolateral amygdala (BLA), lateral septum (LS) and hippocampus (HIP). Alcohol and other drugs of abuse dopamine release in such areas, which is associated with reward/stimulation/euphoria. Several of these areas are targeted by nucleus tractus solitarii (NTS) of the brain stem. Both the VTA and NAc shell are targeted by the projections from laterodorsal tegmental area (LDTg), which to some extent are cholinergic (dark gray). Another selected area of interest include paraventricular nucleus (PVN), arcuate nucleus (ARC) and lateral hypothalamus (LH) and interpeduncular nucleus (IPN).