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Ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine neurons in the brain’s reward circuit have a crucial role in mediating stress responses^,,,, including determining susceptibility versus resilience to social-stress-induced behavioural abnormalities. VTA dopamine neurons show two in vivo patterns of firing: low frequency tonic firing and high frequency phasic firing^,,. Phasic firing of the neurons, which is well known to encode reward signals^,,, is upregulated by repeated social-defeat stress, a highly validated mouse model of depression^,,,,,. Surprisingly, this pathophysiological effect is seen in susceptible mice only, with no apparent change in firing rate in resilient individuals^,. However, direct evidence—in real time—linking dopamine neuron phasic firing in promoting the susceptible (depression-like) phenotype is lacking. Here we took advantage of the temporal precision and cell-type and projection-pathway specificity of …