Fig. 2: Neuronal recruitment impairment in the ACC and NAc in an effort-discounting task caused by iuGC exposure.

A Representative immunohistochemistry of c-fos in the ACC (nCTR = 5, niuGC = 6). B Effort-discounting task recruited ACC of both groups but at different extents, with the activation being significantly lower in iuGC rats. C Representative immunohistochemistry of c-fos in the NAc core (nCTR = 8, niuGC = 7) and shell (nCTR = 8, niuGC = 7). D The NAc core of iuGC rats presented significantly less c-fos+ neurons than CTR rats upon task performance, but not E the NAc shell. F Representative immunohistochemistry of c-fos in the VTA (nCTR = 8, niuGC = 8). G No differences in the number of c-fos+ neurons were observed in the VTA. Error bars denote SEM. *p ≤ 0.05. Scale bar = 25 μm.