The projections of the ventral tegmental area and adjacent regions: a combined fluorescent retrograde tracer and immunofluorescence study in the rat.

In the ventral part of the midbrain, essentially separate groups of aminergic and non-aminergic neurons in both the reticular formation (VTA) and in the adjacent nuclei of the raphe project bilaterally to a variety of similar terminal fields in the telencephalon, diencephal on, and brainstem.