Figure 8: NEE alters dendritic spines in nucleus accumbens.
From: DARPP-32 interaction with adducin may mediate rapid environmental effects on striatal neurons
WT and mutant mice were killed in their home cage or after 24 h in a NEE. Spines were analysed in the nucleus accumbens using the Golgi-Cox method (see Supplementary Fig. 6). (a) Spine length was measured in WT (left panel) and β-adducin KO (right panel) littermate mice (196–252 spines per group) and plotted as cumulative frequency. NEE increased spine length in WT but not in KO mice; Gehan–Breslow–Wilcoxon test: WT, χ2=32.92, degrees of freedom (DF)=1, P<10−4; KO, χ2=9.133, DF=1, P=0.0025. (b) Quantification of spine width in the same samples as in a, plotted as cumulative frequency. NEE increased spine width in WT but not in KO mice; Gehan–Breslow–Wilcoxon test: WT, χ2=5.992, DF=1, P=0.014; KO, χ2=0.04, DF=1, not significant (NS). (c) Analysis of spine length in WT (left panel) and Thr75Ala (T75A) DARPP-32 mutant littermate mice. NEE increased spine length in WT but not in T75A littermates; Gehan–Breslow–Wilcoxon test: WT, χ2=9.836, DF=1, P=0.0017; T75A, χ2=1.958, DF=1, NS. (d) Quantification of spine width in the same samples as in c, plotted as cumulative frequency. NEE increased spine width in WT but not in KO mice; Gehan–Breslow–Wilcoxon test: WT, χ2=13.78, DF=1, P=0.0002; KO, χ2=0.03, DF=1, NS; T75A, χ2=0.049, DF=1, NS.
