is not yet a clear consensus on the role of dopamine function per se in resilience and vulnerability. A recent study in the social-defeat paradigm in mice (see Supplementary information S1 (box)) has shown that increased activity of VTA dopamine neurons mediates vulnerability by increasing the activity-dependent release of BDNF onto nucleus accumbens neurons, and that resilient animals escape vulnerability in part by upregulating K+ channels in the VTA to prevent this increase in neuronal excitability and BDNF release41,67 (FIG. 2).
