Deficits in impulse control and attention are prominent in the symptomatology of mental disorders such as ADHD, substance addiction, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, yet the underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood. Frontostriatal structures, such as the nucleus accumbens (NAcb), the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and their dopaminergic innervation from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) have been implicated in impulse control and attention. What remains unclear, is how the temporal pattern of activity of these VTA projections contributes to these processes. Here, we optogenetically stimulated VTA dopamine cells, as well as VTA projections to the nucleus accumbens core (NAcbC), shell (NAcbS) and the mPFC in male rats performing the 5-choice serial reaction time task. Our data show that stimulation of VTA DA neurons, and VTA projections to the NAcbC and the mPFC immediately prior to presentation of the stimulus cue, impaired attention but spared impulse control. Importantly, in addition to reduc...