“…These findings demonstrate that VTA ACh plays a role in primary reward and signaling of the US. We also propose that the CS signal is comprised of glutamate released from cortical and/or tegmental afferents to the VTA that stimulates N-methyl-D -aspartate (NMDA) receptors on VTA DA neurons Galaj, Seepersad, Dakmak, & Ranaldi, 2018;Hachimine, Seepersad, Babic, & Ranaldi, 2016;Kest et al, 2012;Ranaldi et al, 2011;Zellner et al, 2009). Tegmental neurons respond to independent visual and auditory stimuli (Pan & Hyland, 2005) as well as those associated with rewards (Okada, Toyama, Inoue, Isa, & Kobayashi, 2009;Pan & Hyland, 2005) and control the activity of VTA DA cells (Lodge & Grace, 2006) and DA release in the NAc (Forster & Blaha, 2000;Steidl, O'Sullivan, Pilat, Bubula, Brown, & Vezina, 2017), suggesting that encounters with environmental stimuli, such as those associated with primary rewards, cause glutamate signaling in the VTA that affects DA neuronal activity.…”