Overlapping representations of food and social stimuli in mouse VTA dopamine neurons

Dopamine neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA^DA) respond to food and social stimuli and contribute to both forms of motivation. However, it is unclear whether the same or different VTA^DA neurons encode these different stimuli. To address this question, we performed two-photon calcium imaging in mice presented with food and conspecifics and found statistically significant overlap in the populations responsive to both stimuli. Both hunger and opposite-sex social experience further increased the proportion of neurons that respond to both stimuli, implying that increasing motivation for one stimulus increases overlap. In addition, single-nucleus RNA sequencing revealed significant co-expression of feeding- and social-hormone-related genes in individual VTA^DA neurons. Taken together, our functional and transcriptional data suggest overlapping VTA^DA populations underlie food and social motivation.