Fig. 5

Neural dynamics of mPOA Esr1+ neurons during social behaviors. a Schematics of the strategy to record activities of Esr1+ neurons. b Example images showing co-localization of GCaMP6s and Esr1 signals. Images on the bottom are blowups of the corresponding white squares in the images on the top. Dashed lines show the placement of the optic fiber. Scale bar represents 200 μm for images on the top and 20 μm for images at the bottom. c–f Heat map plots (c, e) and quantification (d, f) of ΔF/F signals around events of social investigations (SI) and mount (M) in male and female Esr1^Cre GCaMP6s animals during social interactions with a female or around events of pup contacts (C) and pup retrieval (R) during interactions with scattered pups, with time “0” aligned to the onset of behaviors. Scale bar in c applies to all heat maps in this figure. In d and f, lines indicate the mean and the shaded area the s.e.m. N = 12 males and 11 females. g, h Significant correlation between total number of Ca²⁺ transients in mPOA Esr1+ neurons and the total number of mount (g) and retrieval (h) between the first and last behavior in a trial. Mount, N = 13 trials for males and 5 trials for females; retrieval, N = 6 trials for males and 12 trials for females. Pearson’s correlation