Fig. 6: Disruption of gap junctions between locomotion interneurons and motor neurons reduces PA14 training-induced Ca²⁺ changes in AVA, AIB, and RIM.

Results were obtained from a triple knockdown strain (unc-7 and inx-19 in AVB, and unc-7 in AVA) expressing GCaMP6 in selected neurons. a, b PA14-induced Ca²⁺ drop in naïve and trained animals of wild type (WT) and the triple RNAi strain. Top: Heatmaps arranged by the response duration. Bottom: The mean (solid line) and SEM (shaded area) of each group. c, d Comparison of training-induced amplitude and duration changes of the Ca²⁺ drop between WT and the triple RNAi strain. e Comparison of the learning index and the naïve choice index between WT and the triple RNAi strain. f Relationships between locomotion speed and the learning index in WT and the triple RNAi animals expressing HisCl1 in body-wall muscle cells (BWM-HisCl1, strain IDs: PLX307 and PLX454). Solid lines are linear fits to the data. WT data is a redisplay of those in Fig. 1b. Each data point of the triple RNAi group represents results from 25-28 assays using one concentration of histamine (from left to right are: 0.8 mM, 0.7 mM, 0.4 mM, 0.1 mM, 0.01 mM, and 0). *, **, and *** indicate p < 0.05, p < 0.01, and p < 0.001, respectively, compared with WT, based on either two-sided unpaired t test (c–e) or two-sided Fit comparison with F-test (f). From left to right, p = < 0.0001, 0.0338, and < 0.0001 (c), 0.0343, 0.0029, and 0.0267 (d), 0.8618 and 0.0074 (e). Brackets contain the number of animals tested (a–d) or independent assays (e, f). Data are shown as means ± SEM. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.