Top Highlights

• It lacks a comprehensive explanation for the degeneration of dopamine neurons and their axons
• chronic chemogenetic excitation of dopaminergic neurons in the mouse midbrain results in differential degeneration of axons and somas across distinct regions (SNc vs VTA).
• It shows that selective degeneration can occur across the midbrain dopaminergic neurons even in the absence of a genetic, prion, or toxin neurodegeneration mechanism.
• The lack of a CNO-positive, DREADD-negative control group in the behavioral experiments is the main limitation in interpreting the behavioral data
• However, it is not perfectly clear that both regions respond to CNO to the same extent

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